In September 2026, New York independent photography publisher Dashwood Books released Airplane Mode 2, a compact 20-page, full-color softcover zine measuring 5.25 by 8 inches. The publication serves as the direct sequel to John Yuyi’s 2021 zine Airplane Mode, which received a concurrent second printing. Together, the works document an unusual long-term practice: staging naked self-portraits inside commercial aircraft lavatories.
Yuyi, a visual artist and photographer who divides her time between New York City and Taipei, traces the origins of this performance series back to 2018. During an endurance flight between her two home bases, she established a personal rule to take a full-frontal or partial naked selfie in the lavatory each time she boarded an airplane. The project, titled Naked Selfie On Airplane, has since evolved into an eight-year archival endurance effort spanning 2018 to 2026, capturing shifts in her body, transit, and confinement.
Rather than turning the airplane bathroom into an elaborate studio, Yuyi adheres to tight operational constraints. She limits each shoot strictly to the timeframe of a standard passenger bathroom break, working quickly under temporal pressure before stepping back into the aisle. Every image is captured as an iPhone mirror selfie, with her device and hands deliberately left visible within the frame. Operating simultaneously as director, photographer, and subject, Yuyi retains total control over the composition and the exact manner in which her body is registered.
The visual setting leans directly into the utilitarian sterility of aviation design. Yuyi positions her bare body against molded plastic sinks, disinfectant dispensers, graphic safety placards, and clinical fluorescent bulbs. Within these sterile confines, she improvises with whatever disposable amenities are on hand. Disposable paper toilet seat covers become framing cowls or facial masks, rolls of toilet paper shield her eyes or reshape her silhouette, and paper cups end up balanced atop her head.
In project statements, Yuyi has described the body of work as an investigation of the relationship between “a space and a group of people in the same confined space,” alongside an exploration of “the persistence in doing something [that] seems to be meaningless.” The title itself nods to the mobile operating system setting travelers must enable before takeoff, connecting the physical restrictions of flight with digital detachment. Yuyi has also noted that her artistic work provides an outlet to externalize her personal experiences with bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression.
This interplay between the human body and everyday materials has long anchored Yuyi’s career. She first drew international recognition with her 2015 project Face-Post, in which she applied temporary decal tattoos of digital interface icons (such as cursor arrows, URLs, usernames, and like buttons) across her skin and slabs of raw meat. The aviation series has similarly crossed mediums before: in 2021, she teamed with Hardleveltaro Toy to produce the Naked Selfie On Airplane Action Figure, a limited edition of 200 small sculptures showing her holding toilet seat covers, sold to support anti-Asian hate initiatives.
Compiling selections created between 2020 and 2026, Airplane Mode 2 brings Yuyi’s lavatory performances back into print. By transforming high-altitude bathroom breaks into a structured ritual, the artist turns routine transit into an ongoing record of time, confinement, and self-documentation.