Curatorial Thinking and Writing, offered by ICCI, is designed to develop students’ critical writing skills in the professional context of art curation and animatecontemporary art discourse through the medium of writing. The course is taught by Professor Travis Jeppesen. This is the sixth interview in a series of artist interviews conducted by ICCI MFA students of Class 2021.
In Conversation with Xue Yuxuan:
Art as a Problem-Solving Tool
As a photographer you must be like a child, always curious to experience and understand. Taking a picture is often a moment, but after that, you have to spend the rest of your life to experience its meaning. -- Xue Yuxuan
Xue Yuxuan was born in Dongying, Shandong Province. She earned a master’s degree in photography from the School of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2014, Xue Yuxuan started to experiment with expressing ideas through images, focusing on the survival status and inner growth of marginalized people. She has been a co-photographer for Phoenix.com, Headline Today, and European Times.
Her documentary work “Let Them Eat Cake” is included in the University of the Arts London Collection (2020). She was nominated for London Photobox Photography Award (2019). The anti-racism work “Racism is Virus” is included in theu Museum of London (2019). She is the artist-in-residence of Fine Art Taiwan: Southeast Asian Island Ecological Chain Research (2020). She participated in the “Lian - Island Project” of Prancing Art in Beijing and is a resident artist (2019). With her photography work “白日依山（White Sun on the Mountain）”, she was selected as a new photographer for Taipei International Photography Festival (2016). Her photography work “春风不度（Spring Breeze Never Dies）”was selected for the 13th International Photography Art Exhibition in Shanghai (2016). XueYuxuan currently lives in Chengdu and teaches at Sichuan Media Institute.
Q: I know that you are currently in Chengdu, participating in an artist organization the Art and Social Innovation Lab. You are also the artist in charge of the program of the Sopochang Art Space established by this lab. By learning about your uwork during this period, I found that you have collaborated a lot with local residents, in such projects as “要精神，不要乌苏（Spirit, Not Usu）”in SUSAS Cell Project（Shanghai Space Art Season） and your photography works “我的父亲（My Father）” in Supochang Art Space. I feel that both the highly interactive creative workshops and the artworks led by yourself have a very close connection with local residents, which reminds me of a question raised by Fei Jun earlier: Is artwork displayed in public space public art? I remember this is what he said, “The new publicness of public art is no longer the traditional sense of ‘art in public space is public art’, but a greater emphasis on deeply involving the audience in the creative work of art through a variety of different sensory modalities. I depict this new public nature of art as a form of ‘public art’ practice. It is possible to generate a new kind of creativity through artworks. I think that an exhibition with the characteristics of ‘public art’ becomes a new face of art exhibitions – no longer an elitist, worshiped mode of art appreciation.” I wonder what your opinion is on this issue. How do you see the new publicness of public art and how is it reflected in your creations?
YX: I have paid attention to Mr. Fei before, and his statements about public art are indeed very interesting. His works such as “水曰（Talk to Water）” have also given me a lot of thoughts. But there are some differences between our works, probably because of the medium we use. Feijunprobably emphasizes the use of new technologies to intervene in art, so that the audience can immerse themselves in the artworks created by this digital medium through different senses. My process of creating art is a bit simpler than Feijun’s. I may just present the images that are meaningful to the residents in my works without simply separating them but with their own contexts. Or I might lead a small group of residents doing some simple activities that they might not try on their own. In this kind of interaction with the public, it may seem like a simple thing, but I think it’s a very interesting process to use my sensitivity as an artist to bring the residents to discover something beautiful in their lives that they may have overlooked themselves. I think the publicness of art can also be reflected here.
In my opinion the publicness of art creation is to some extent a reflection of the pursuit of an ideal supreme lifestyle, which may not be particularly practical. But I understand it this way: we cannot choose our life passively, but we can choose our way of life and our mentality. We can be positive and optimistic in the face of life and can also be bored to accept the status quo. Although we can’t make our life reach an idealized state, I think through creating art together we can let ordinary people feel that we can be freer in our thoughts. This is what we seek. It is often difficult to reconcile the ideal and the reality. The publicness of art may also come into play in this regard.
Q: Combined with the above questions, do you think the role of art as a method to intervene in the community is practical and reliable? Since I studied urban design in architecture as my undergraduate, I am still very much in favor of the Sopochang art space as an urban acupuncture approach to activating communities. But there are many other architects or urban designers like my classmates, and we are also constantly discussing the integration of the field, time, events and local residents in our undergraduate studies. They may also work in this field, and these practitioners often have more solid theoretical and practical accumulation related to the city, so they may be able to provide practical help to the residents and provide a long-lasting impact on the life level, so where do artists fit in such a situation and what are their advantages?
YX: There is some truth in what you say, I think. But this is also a stereotype from the public’s view of art. I think it is probably also influenced by the utilitarian philosophy that Chinese people have always accepted. To be honest, I have had similar problems before, whether I can help those who need help by taking this path of art. This discussion has been quite hot recently, because the artist Pang Kuan, the lead singer of New Pants, started a 14-day non-stop live broadcast at 798 Star Space on April 23rd, which is related to the discussion of lockdown and prevention of the COVID-19. The first reaction of most people, when confronted with Pang Kuan’s performance art, is “Is it necessary”. Many people criticized his performance as a kind of attention-grabbing show, especially when the COVID-19 was so serious in Shanghai. The contrast with your real-life there seems to be a bit of irony in it. More people may think that such art does not help to alleviate the difficulties brought by the epidemic, but is more like consuming the fever of the epidemic. Although my artwork is not very similar to his, I think your question has something in common with this discussion in some ways. For example, if I had gone on to study architecture like you, I would have been able to build a house for the residents in a very tangible way, but would the value of the life provided inside this house necessarily be greater than the art workshop we organized at the Supochang Art Space?
I think we all need to think from a different perspective. Art should not be considered a tool to solve a specific problem. We should get away from the idea that whatever we do, we can get feedback or pursue a result. The purpose of art is never limited to dealing with a certain problem but to raise a question through art-making and to make people reflect. I think the role of art is to stimulate people from different fields to see the neglected perspectives and details, and to awaken some reflections. This aspect is still somewhat similar to the previous answer. When a person has got something spiritually, maybe his lack of material things is not so important. This is my opinion.
But in fact, the art market is also gradually improving, right? This is also a very direct trend that can help art to be transmitted into money. For example, the works I create through collaboration with residents can be sold in galleries. The money from this can also be used as an auxiliary fund for the community, or it can be fed back directly to the residents to improve their quality of life. These are also the attempts we are planning to take. But at the moment, the main focus of Supochang Art Space is focused on charity activities.
Q: The location of Supochang Art Space is also an interesting choice. It is a kind of art creation that grows wild next to the market. Such a place that houses art workshops, art creations, and art exhibitions, which reminds me of Mr. Qiu Zhijie’s solo exhibition on May 1, 2021, at the San Yuan Li Market in Beijing, which was themed “民以食为天（Food for the People）”. The combination of Qiu Zhijie’s exhibition and the market somehow emphasizes the service of writing as a means of transmitting information, restoring the role of calligraphy as a “cultural community” in ancient times. It is in pursuit of this sense of the “social service of the writer”. Although your works at the Sopochang Art Space may be different from those of Mr. Qiu Zhijie, they are coincidentally created in the same space, which is a very lively market. How do you understand the combination of photography and video production with local markets?
YX: Photography is also a very common and popular means of communication. Photography probably didn’t even start out as an artistic discipline, but simply a way for the general public to record. It is also the same as calligraphy, where the primary function is to convey information. I also didn’t startout with photography as an artistic expression. I was more like a child when photography, always full of curiosity. Creating at the market does give me a lot of opportunities to record life fragments. But I haven’t tried to combine the display of my work with the market yet, and your question has given me some inspiration.
Q: By learning more about your creations in SupochangArt Space, such as the series of images “无治安案件发生（No Security Cases）” and “张兰退休后的阳光生活（Zhang Lan's Sunny Life after Retirement）” in the exhibition “27岁与世界（27 and the World）”, I feel that compared to your previous award-winning work “共生（Symbiosis）”, which was such a figurative new media installation created during undergraduate, your focus has gradually shifted to the process of creation, rather than simply pursuing formal perfection. This makes me feel that you have shifted from result-oriented art creation to a process-oriented one. I find this trend very interesting, and it is somewhat different from the more traditional classical art creation, which reminds me of conceptual art. I also understand that you are an art student. Since I have a similar experience, I understand when a person beginning as an art student approached art creation probably initially sought more or less formal beauty, which is kind of different from conceptual art. How did your art creation change, or how did your mentality slowly figure out how to develop in this direction?
YX: I am not quite sure···to be honest. When I first started to create, I did look for composition, light and shadow, as you said. But then I realized that I felt very different when I experienced the reaction of using photography to observe myself. Who are you? What does it mean? The process-oriented creation often makes me feel that taking a photo is a moment, but afterwards, you have to spend the rest of your life to experience its meaning.
Q: Your work “漫游岛城 - 岛屿生态学（Wandering Island City - Island Ecology）” is about the islands in the frontier, about the intertwining of the daily life and the nature. I also know that you made a new media art installation called “共生（Symbiosis）” during your college years, and the project won the Z Award in Jiangsu Province Cultural Creativity Competition. The concept of “共生（Symbiosis）” comes from the relationship between human and nature, which is very related to the “Anthropocene” that we have been enthusiastically discussing in recent years from geography to literature and art creation. I wonder if I can understand “漫游岛城 - 岛屿生态学（Wandering Island City - Island Ecology）” as an extension of the concept of the Anthropocene after the “共生（Symbiosis）” Project? It seems to me that the two themes may be somewhat related. By comparing them, you can see that the previous work was more straightforward, young and inexperienced, while the video “漫游岛城 - 岛屿生态学（Wandering Island City - Island Ecology）” is different. I would like to know how you see the continuation of this theme and the connection between these two projects?
YX: To be honest, I didn’t know much about the concept of the Anthropocene when I read your question. (laughs) But after I got to know it a little bit, it’s true that some of my creations are related to this theme in some way. In particular, this concept focuses on the role of human beings on the earth, and this description touches me very much.
In the project “Symbiosis”, we were inspired by the relationship between human beings and the natural world. The real world we are facing is a contradictory unity composed of human society and the natural world. On one hand, human existence and development cannot be separated from nature and must be replaced with nature through productive labor. On the other hand, with the development of productive forces, the ability of human beings to transform nature has increased, so that nature is no longer the original sense, but has left human imprints everywhere. Man and nature form, a chain of dependence, a chain of association, and a chain of penetration. Based on the relationship between man and nature, we came up with the theme of our work called symbiosis. In the work, we mainly use 3D printing installation art and projection interactive art combined with new media installation presentation form. The inspiration for the alien installation comes from nature. We compare human beings to schools of fish as a clue of the work and interspersed in the different scenes. Each scene represents a different living environment. And the scenes are presented in the form of symbiotic graphics. We hope to create visual interest and dynamism with this expression.
Although this project is very young and has a lot of immaturity. I am even a little embarrassed to look back at the results now. But as I said before, the process is more meaningful in my creation than the presentation of the results. I did reflect a lot in the process of creation, maybe not deep enough. But because of this creation I have a major premise as an entry point in the latter project.
Such continuity permeates every aspect of my life. The project began with a plane ride, where we often looked out the window and watched the land area shrink as it rose in altitude, and our perception of the boundaries of the land was elevated from a two-dimensional perspective to a God’s perspective in a matter of minutes. From urban plains to winding rivers, from hills and valleys to majestic mountains, gradually transformed into towering islands in the middle of the ocean. It dawned on me that the islands are actually miniature continents, and the continents are very, very huge islands. With seemingly distinct boundaries of land and sea, the world is both related and seemingly unrelated. It is this beautiful emptiness that makes us want to explore.
A map of islands inspired Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the classic children’s story Treasure Island. In his Essay on Writing Techniques, he said, “I have in some cases drew a map of an island whose colorful appearance has stimulated my imagination. The harbor there enchanted me as if it were a sonnet.”
Based on island topology, we move from harbor to island, from mainland to lake, seemingly unrelated points, in a fictional dream that breaks the continuity of time and space. The year 2020 is a very special year, we are deeply affected by the new crown epidemic. Today, it is still difficult to return to cross-cultural exchange travel. With the continued isolation of national borders, we want to know the possibilities and limitations of island topologies, and co-creation models.
Q: In many of your artistic creations, I find that your hometown “Dongying” appears from time to time. For example, you created “东热（Dong Hot）”, a platform for young artists to promote Dongying, and “DOING HOT - LONG FOR LIFE”, a short film to promote Dongying youth culture. And this year (2022) you were invited to participate in the first contemporary art exhibition in Dongying: 追远——另一种方式讲述东营（Chasing the Distance - Another Way to Tell Dongying）. In this exhibition, your experience of everyday life in Dongying is contrasted with the unnamed old photos of Dongying, showing a kind of change and constancy in life of your hometown. After studying in other province, going abroad, and now living in Chengdu, a city with strong regional characteristics, you have experienced a very diverse culture across different provinces and countries, has the role of your hometown become more diverse in your creation? How do the culture of your hometown and the culture of different regions work together in your creations?
YX: The obvious psychological perception of my hometown came after I went to college. After studying abroad and living in Chengdu now, I feel that the image of my hometown is constantly changing and always standing in a certain place in my heart. I have an innate urge to tell stories based on my hometown. From a young age when I wanted to organize a platform called “DONG HOT” to try to promote the living and cultural atmosphere of young people in Dongying, to now when I am more restrained in expressing a little bit of my worries and misses for my hometown.
Q: From your previous youth culture platform “DONG HOT” to your current participation in Supochang Art Space as an artist, you have been a part of the Generation Collaboration Program. I feel that both the online WeChat platform and the offline stores in the market are somehow a kind of gathering of young artists. What is the difference between creating in such a collective and creating as an individual artist? What is the difference for you from “DONG HOT” to “Supochang Art Space”?
YX: It largely depends on the artist’s personal preference, I guess. I think that by working in a group, you can learn a lot from other artists and avoid getting yourself into a corner in some areas. Of course, there are also advantages of working independently.撰