Consensual Inequality - Consensual Inequality is the phrase I made up to describe the agreement between the immigrant and the state. In reaction to the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s open letter in 2017 to the public. In the letter, Rutte urged immigrants to either adapt to the value of the country (act normal) or leave. When this happened, I was preparing for the application documents for longer stay in the country, which required me to prove how good or successful I am as an artist. Inspired by this experience, I cut the letters WELKOM (welcome) from a IKEA doormat, rearranged them as the word NORMAAL (normal) in the same piece of fabric, and placed few envelopes of the tax office as the bottom layer, which can only be noticed by viewers when they get close enough to the floor.
For Art Rotterdam 2018, I placed the transformed doormat alongside its IKEA original at the entry of the gallery booth for visitors to step over, and for them to contemplate the interplay between the two textual messages.
Real Integration - Collaborated with Qiaochu Guo
Remaking the Dutch Integration Exam, but for a REAL world.
This project aims to address discrimination and race/identity issues faced by Asians in the Netherlands by recreating the Dutch civic integration exam (inburgeringsexamen). The revised exam features 10 scenarios based on true stories from 23 contributors and presents multiple options for each scenario, with no set answer. The original exam focuses on teaching foreigners about Dutch rules and culture in daily life, such as visiting a patient in the hospital. However, it fails to acknowledge the reality of explicit and implicit discrimination that one may encounter in daily life.
Collective Memory #1
Attachment – Arch and Tongue - The archless modern 'Arc de Triomphe', where Kunming Contemporary Gallery situates, is accompanied by a colorful balloon dog in front of its facade, which is slightly different from Jeff Koons' original in its color combination and its stuck-out tongue. It is an appropriation of the famous example of artists appropriating commonplace objects. This installation combines the absence of the arch and the presence of the balloon dog together. Firstly, two spandrels are created to restore the curved shape of the original. Then a photo of the new building's facade, which is made of steel and glass, is taken, cut into appropriated shape and pasted directly onto the spandrels. On top of the restored arch there arrays some modified objects, which include a photo of the original Arc de Triomphe 'copied' directly from the Internet (with its watermark), a photo of the Kunming version taken by myself, two selfies of me in front the Kunming version and its fellow balloon dog, details of the Arc de Triomphe's spandrels, and the miniature of the balloon dog's tongue. This arrangement functions like a map laying out the intricate relationships between the original physical structure and its derivative, between the respective spectacles they create, and between their respective cultural indexicalities (or the losses of that).
Tulip Pyramid - Collaboration with
Rongkai He 贺荣凯
Cheng Guo 郭城
Weiyi Li 李维伊
Dangdang Xing 邢当当
Dawei Yang 杨大威
These two tulip pyramids call for a revaluation of the often disparaged yet indispensable practice of copying in an ever more open and multicultural art scene. In China, the phenomenon of producing counterfeits of Western design has been criticised for its illegitimate profit in terms of copyright infringement, as well as its damaging effects on creating the unique ‘Chinese identity’. Being interested in the complicated relationship between copying and identity, I examined the history of the tulip pyramids of the Rijksmuseum. My research reveals to me the creative possibility brought by the intercultural copying between Chinese porcelain and its Dutch counterpart, despite the appropriation and the misinterpretation occurred during the process of cultural translation.
Thereafter, I remade two tulip pyramids that show the role of copying in reshaping cultural identity and in disenchanting the absolute connection between originality and creativity. One was created in remote collaboration with five Chinese designers/artists/craftsmen, who live in different cities in China and Europe. We shared the authorship of the pyramid. The other pyramid is made to self-reflect over my own identity as an in-between of China and the Netherlands. Incorporating the iconic works of five well-known Dutch designers into my former school works, I questioned their influences over me; and more importantly, I reactivated the practice of copying as a creative method that would stimulate new forms and new contents of art.
Arches of the Triumph - In “Arches of the Triumph,” Jing He uses the architectural iconography of triumphal arches to create three speculative scenarios that critically examine the unpredictable forces of geopolitics. An animated “engine” presents a virtual map in which five existing arches—in Rome (Italy), New York. (U.S.), Paris (France), Pyongyang (North Korea) and Kunming (the artist’s hometown in China)— migrate and shift along with the earth’s tectonic movements to represent the convoluted mechanisms that produce historical events.
The engine then generates three future monuments that emerge from its rifts: in Pyongyang, Sihanoukville (Cambodia) and Kunming. These new iterations of triumphal arches—a typology rooted in patriarchy, contested narratives and violence—bring into stark relief the surprise turns, overlooked details and once-implausibilities that are often the key drivers of history.
Arches of Triumph
Arches of Tiumph
Arches of Truimph
Arches of Triumph - Animation is collaborated with Shuran Ke
