Born and raised in Urumqi, Xinjiang, Hailun Ma moved to New York at eighteen to study fashion photography at the School of Visual Arts. Despite the distance between Urumqi and Brooklyn, she found an unexpected resonance between the two places: Brooklyn is shaped by communities from around the world, while Xinjiang, historically situated along the Silk Road, has long been a place of cultural exchange, where different traditions and ways of life intersect.
These two cities became formative coordinates in Ma’s life and practice. Drawing on the visual language of fashion photography, she turned her lens toward her home region, using Xinjiang as both a point of departure and a continuing source of inspiration. This intersection gave rise to Urooklyn—a name that brings together Urumqi and Brooklyn, and with them, two distinct yet interconnected parts of her experience.
Through Urooklyn, Ma seeks to open up another way of seeing contemporary Xinjiang: beyond postcard landscapes and familiar representations, toward the textures, gestures, people, and details embedded in everyday life. Her images create a space between familiarity and discovery—inviting those who call the region home to look again, while offering audiences elsewhere a more immediate and multifaceted encounter with Xinjiang today.
