Qiushu Li

Qiushu Li is a Chinese visual artist whose professional practice involves hand-drawn 2d animation, game visual design, illustration, photography.

Qiushu graduated from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts with a Bachelor degree in 2018. Upon graduating, her career started by working as a game visual designer at NetEase Games in Hangzhou from 2018 to 2020. Since 2021, she has been studying and researching at the Royal College of Art.

In her practice at the Royal College of Art, she has been exploring the structure and aesthetics of the moving image based on text, materials and sound. She is committed to the innovation of form and artistic language. Her works include themes of gender, politics, private memory, poetry and she has been finding combination of sensibility and rationality in her creative journey.

I create to satisfy my curiosity and desire of exploration.

My creation usually begins with photography and writing. I like to look for some old objects, such as family photos, old toys, diaries and my current subjective feelings of memory, which can bring me a lot of inspiration. These materials also constitute collective memory, which not only records family history, but also traces of an era.

During my practice at the Royal College of Art, I became interested in narrative. I began to think about the text and structure of films, as well as aesthetic expression. My graduate project: It's Dance Time was one such attempt.

Trailer - It's Dance Time (2023) – It’s Dance Time is a 2d animation film with 4 minutes 10 seconds long, it shows an intimate conversation between two student girls during a group dance between classes, talking about body changes and the experience of UFO sightings.