#GraduateStory | Zhang Rachel: Finding Balance in a Surging Sea



Three years ago, I wrote in my diary, "I seem to slip easily into utopian moods, daydreams and fantasies." Today, I spend more time engaging with the present. Perhaps I have found a sense of balance amid all the changes around me.

Perhaps each moment now feels so full, or perhaps I have already reached a life I once imagined. Throughout high school, I have used art to explore my surroundings and the people I meet, and to examine and understand myself.



Part 01: Childhood—Learning to Express What I Felt

Since childhood, I have been unusually sensitive to changes in my surroundings. Even a small sensation could feel intense, like the cold I felt when trailing my fingers through lake water. To understand these impressions and discoveries, I tried expressing them through painting and photography, sculpture and dance.

Part 02: High School—Exploring Through Art

In the summer after Grade 10, I attended a street dance camp simply because I wanted to go. There, dance brought together people from very different backgrounds. The experience inspired me to use art to connect with a wider range of people, alongside expressing my own ideas. I later entered the New York Times' Photo Essay Competition.

Working on that entry introduced me to a contemporary dance community I had previously known little about. Photography gave me a way to participate in their world, and I came to love contemporary dance myself. Through it, I became more aware of the changing relationships between people and between people and their surroundings.





Connecting Art with Audiences

During high school, I also explored curating exhibitions as a way to connect art with its audiences. My friends and I founded Art Around Us to bring art to our school and the surrounding community.

Inspired by Han Kang's The Vegetarian, I worked with older student Wang Yiyi in Grade 11 to curate Feast of the Other. The exhibition explored ecofeminism, bringing works by different artists together through a narrative. I also organized related reading groups so that we could examine the theme more deeply.



In the summer when I worked on my portfolio, my high school explorations began to come together. Each piece drew on earlier experiences and my reflections on particular themes, along with what I was feeling as I made it.

AP Art History and AP Psychology strongly influenced my portfolio. Art History introduced me to Mondrian, whose work I came to love. In the school's Elite Scholar elective, I analyzed the idea of utopia in his grid paintings. The structure of his work also influenced my painting and photography.

AP Psychology gave me new ways to observe everyday behavior and explore the motivations behind film narratives. It also helped me understand my own creative thinking. Psychoanalysis and ideas about perception and memory inspired my portfolio. One sculpture, for example, came from observing repetitive, entrenched patterns of behavior in the people around me. I distilled those gestures and compressed them, then recreated them in the work.



Part 03: Finding My Balance

High school brought demanding periods of standardized exams and approaching deadlines, when I sometimes felt overwhelmed. I am grateful for each part of those years. Together, they form an imperfect experience that is uniquely mine.

I want to thank my parents for understanding and supporting me when I chose the international track in the second semester of Grade 10, and later decided to pursue fine art. I am grateful to Ms. Hu Jie for helping me develop my activities and Ms. Ren Qiuming for her attentive guidance in art. Ms. Liu Jie patiently helped me revise my application essays and activities list again and again. My Homeroom Teacher, Ms. Lin Xuejiao, gave me care and support, and my friends were there for me throughout.

Part 04: A Parent's Reflection

Our daughter chose the international track in the second semester of Grade 10, explored her interests and gained admission to Carnegie Mellon to study art. Throughout that process, I was encouraged by her willingness to understand herself honestly and her determination to pursue her own direction. Our support comes from respect and love, and from our belief that a person should choose what they care about and devote themselves to it over a lifetime.

Her father and I sometimes had different opinions about her choice of major or concerns about choosing colleges. In our private conversations, we always returned to the same conviction: she should pursue what she loves. We also encouraged her to develop other abilities so that she would have more options in the future. Keeping her whole life in view helped us give her the fullest support we could.

Her love of art enables her to work through night after night, draw on what she learned as a child and express it creatively. I am grateful to her for remaining true to herself and choosing her future with courage, and to Beijing Academy for its attentive teaching and support. I believe she is taking responsibility for her own future and has made a confident first step. I wish my beloved daughter happiness and fulfillment throughout her life.