Page 59 - Winter Issue

Exhibiting internationally, how has the cultural exchange between London and Beijing influenced your
approach to art-making?
The cultural exchange between London and Beijing has had a major impact on my work, especially in terms of how
environments shape personal identity. In Beijing, I focus more on collectivism and personal sacrifice, while in London,
my work often explores individualism and self-expression. This shift is also reflected in how I connect with the stories of
first-generation immigrant women, as I respond to the emotions and reflections that each city evokes in me. I adjust my
work depending on where it’s exhibited, considering how the local cultural context may shape the audience’s experience,
while also exploring the multifaceted identities that emerge in different spaces.
Your work spans digital art and multimedia practices. How do you decide which medium or combination
of mediums best serves the conceptual goals of a particular project?
I often find a core concept or keyword in my research that guides my choice of medium. For example, in ‘Comet Tail’,
“movement” became the key word, representing historical journeys, cosmic narratives, and even dimensional shifts. This
made digital art the ideal way to explore dynamic connections over time and space. In ‘The Tent’, it was a different story.
Initially, I tried to create a digital environment to show my connection to London, but it wasn’t capturing the depth I
needed. So, I went back to my research and found the keywords “fading” and “fusion,” which brought me to
performance and film as ways to show myself becoming part of the city. Choosing a medium is part of experimenting
and evolving with each concept, allowing me to explore my ideas in multiple dimensions.
Can you discuss a specific project or exhibition that particularly challenged your ideas about the
relationship between body and space? How did that experience shape your subsequent work?
‘The Tent’ really changed my understanding of body and space. This was my first performance piece, and I walked
through the crowded streets of South Kensington in an enclosed tent. At first, I felt tense, but as I adapted, the tent
became a private, secure space that gave me an unexpected sense of calm. This experience made me think deeply about
the tension between intimate and public spaces, and how our bodies interact with these spaces. It pushed me to explore
my own body as a personal space, which I’ve continued to develop by examining how physical scars and bruises become
material elements of my inner world. This exploration is ongoing, and I’m always finding new ways to express the
connection between body and space.

The Tent
Experimental video
2024

The Tent is a research-based multimedia artwork that uses autoethnographic methodology. It addresses the struggle of female subjectivity
against the Big Other in the context of cultural colonialism and sexualisation. The artist conducted a long-term third-perspective observation of
her own dating life, integrating emotions into intimate spaces through poetic graphic narrative. Using the method of integration in self-archiving
and invoking psychoanalytic theories to parse the textual graphics, the artist attempts to find a connection between the environment and herself,
thus removing the sense of dislocation and alienation caused by the dramatic environmental change. In the process, the self-narrative paradox of
hysterical discourse is revealed. The emotional stories symbolised by the structure are built into the in-between world. It actively interprets both
the intimate space and the individual, isolating the individual from the environment, but at the same time reconstituting a new way of connecting
the individual to the environment. The tent, as part of the artist's body, becomes a daydream made of the body, but covering it, where the visible
and the invisible happen simultaneously, interpreting the situation of the divided female subject. She exists in the city, she disappears in the city. It
is grotesque and must be interpreted by others.

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