Growing up in the historical capital of Xi’an, Sun was influenced by the local culture, where he nurtured an impulse was to retain the ephemeral through photography. This was his inspiration for the Empty Room series, which began in 2009. Over the years, the series has evolved by integrating traces of human activity in the spaces; leaving to an individual’s imagination the stories behind them. His works express calm and poetry, showing the extraordinary or strange nature within, as they explore the boundary between “everyday” and “spectacle.” As an architect, Sun specializes in design and cultural heritage protection.

Sun has participated in institutional group exhibitions and delivered lectures at UCCA Beijing and OCAT Shanghai. Sun has also been widely covered by media such as Yi Tiao, Wallpaper China, DEMO magazine, Radius, China Business News, etc.

A Winter Trip 2020 is a series of gelatin silver print black-and-white photography Sun Haiting completed in Japan (January 2020), at the very end of pre-covid era. If the Empty Room series shot with large-format camera were a statement piece, A Winter Trip 2020 would be an ephemeral poetry.