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Information Experience Design (MA)

Shuyuan Chen 陈书缘

Shuyuan Chen, Susu, 陈书缘

Susu is an oxymoron.

She is obsessed with traditional handicrafts, but also enjoys the challenge of new media and technology.

Susu is desire to go back to basics, but also to be fashionable.

Therefore, Susu become a multi-disciplinary artist.


Susu often jumps between the fine art and design mindset to create her work.

Susu likes her audiences to debate different points of view in the context of her open art topics.

Susu doesn't want art to be too serious.

Susu enjoys using his artworks to satirize events that bother her.


Susu is a lover of colour.

Susu likes the raw feeling of chaos and the free growth of form.


In 2022, Susu received her BA in Public Sculpture Studio, Department of Public Art, School of Sculpture and Public Art, China Academy of Art. In 2023, Susu received her MA in Information Experience Design, School of Communication, Royal College of Art.

Susu and her projects

I focus on the social issues in the hidden corners of the city.

I step into the grey areas. I explore the boundaries of the city.

I connect myself to the city.

I scratch a piece of ground to reinvent a new world.

My world is a reflection of the real world.

I express my personal views here while leading the audience to an open debate about them.


'At the forefront of practice.'

I advocate activism.


Art is not about burying your head in the sand, go have fun!

Zombie Car Movement
Zombie Car Movement, participating in WIP Show, RCA White City, 2023
Zombie Car Movement
Zombie Car Movement (Partial)
Artefacts including toolkits and flag from the Occupy Party
WIP SHOW (Partial)
Metal box from the scrap yard and new narrative I constructed behind images
Act Art
Acts from the Occupiers
Act Art
Zombie car 3D scan
Zombie car 3D scan
Zombie car 3D scan
3D scans of zombie cars from China
Zombie car 3D scan

Zombie Car Movement 僵尸车运动

I build a new narrative based on the current problem of zombie cars in China, imagining a future in which the zombie car problem is left untreated for a long time in a state of barbarism.

I interviewed the lawyer and learned that there are currently no clear legal provisions for dealing with zombie cars, so the inability of the police to legally dispose of them and the lack of authority of communities to do so has led to their proliferation. 

In my fictional worldview, I set up the government, Remove Party and Occupy Party. Remove Party is inspired by an interview with a retired veteran from a community, like the interviewee, believed that zombie cars are taking up public space and resources and want to let the government move them out. Occupy Party is inspired by an interview with a zombie car owner who had traces of a homeless man living in his car. The members of Occupy Party are mainly from nonviolent anarchists, people who are against the social system, people who want to reuse the trash and people who are interested in the challenge. They are dissatisfied that zombie cars are left untreated and untouchable, and believe that since the zombie car problem cannot be solved, do they use these cars unspoken and without being noticed.

With the government's inaction and secretly balancing the contrary between two parties, in the end the zombie car problem will not be solved.

Medium:

Experimental video, act art, digital

Size:

Size variable
Climate 20XX Exhibition
Zombie Car City, participating in Climate 20XX Exhibition, Orleans House Gallery, 2023
Climate 20XX Exhibition (Partial)
How might we deal with zombie cars in the future? (Audience feedback)
Zombie Car City (Partial)
Zombie Car City (Partial)
Zombie Car City (Partial)
Zombie Car City (Partial)

Zombie Car City 僵尸车之城

"Watch out, zombie cars have occupied the streets to become the new urban trash."

In most cities in China, especially those that are modernizing at a rapid pace, these cars are abandoned by their owners in all corners of the city, especially on the streets, in communities and in car parks. Originally belonging to someone, they are now forcibly occupying public space, scandalizing the urban landscape, sowing safety hazards and becoming a social problem in the gray area between private and public space.

Experimental procedure 1Upcoming Exhibition: The whole project will be on display at the Royal College of Art Kensington campus on 30 June.
Archive
Experimental procedure 2
Archive

A residue of the city's past or its ultimate hope? 城市的糟粕还是城市的希望?

Occupation is the oldest way of acquiring ownership of objects, the original desire of life. In the future of China's rapidly developing city, in the face of a cramped city, a city of consumption, in a grey area where the boundaries between public and private space are blurred and difficult to control is the last space to breathe, the occupiers look for urban freedom in zombie cars.

These cars, whose history may date back to China in the epidemic of the last century, have been piled up in public spaces due to factors such as lack of jurisdiction and the disappearance of their owners, gradually occupying all corners of the city and forming a unique urban landscape.

Medium:

Installation, sculpture, fabrics, film, sound

Size:

Size variable

SUSU

Personal website