Xinyi Ren

Xinyi Ren featured image

About

Xinyi Ren is an artist and designer from China and is now based in London. She explored the concept of the relationship between humans and nature. Through her work, she prompts introspection on our tendency to overlook and underestimate the lives of other-than-human species, as well as challenges the prevalent stereotypes ingrained in human culture.

Xinyi Ren hopes to create different perspectives by observing, learning and presenting the intelligence and behaviour of non-human species. With a background in graphic communication design, she is interested in exploring peculiar aesthetics that create a profound sense of connection to the natural environment on which our survival depends.

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Degree Details

Statement

Nature is often perceived as a resource and commodity for the benefit of humans. Through categories and classifications, humans assess the value, efficiency and profit that can extract from it. However, this approach can also lead to an oversimplification of the world as it often fails to capture its diversity and complexity.

“Tell my story” is an immersive design project that aims to critique the instrumentalization of natural life through an imaginative conversation between an apple and a person. The narrative of the conversation invites the audience to explore the brutality of food production and raises the question of the inherent value that nature has beyond commodification.

Can the norm of oppressing nature be disrupted by listening to the non-human species? 

Can a playful narrative make people have a different perspective on viewing nature?

What is a more attentive encounter between humans and non-humans?


Tell My Story - Installation

The supermarket serves as the nexus between urban dwellers and nature outside the city, where people acquire natural resources through their purchasing behaviour. People have become accustomed to perceiving nature as passive, spiritless, and objectified materiality. This work revolves around an apple (the protagonist of the narrative) revealing how crop plants have lost their ability to communicate due to human domestication and how they have been packaged and commodified.

Medium: Mixed media installation

Tell My Story - Video

This is the Webinar that will take place next to the grocery shelf (work in progress).

Medium: 8mins video

Related Experiments

The life of a tomato — The exploration of the concept “instrumentalization of life”. Nowadays, the tomatoes we eat are selected and cultivated to be vastly different from their original form. If they grew in the wild, they would be eaten by passing animals or rot on the ground. But, tomatoes are now mass-cultivated for their nutritional value and treated as commodities. This video visually present the viewpoint of the tomato, with emphasising how it is treated as food. It also shows the viewpoint of house plants as decorations.
WIP show
WIP show — Experiments with multi-screen to play a video.
Photographies
Photographies — The exploration of the concept “instrumentalization of life”. Nowadays, the tomatoes we eat are selected and cultivated to be vastly different from their original form. If they grew in the wild, they would be eaten by passing animals or rot on the ground. But, tomatoes are now mass-cultivated for their nutritional value and treated as commodities. This video visually presents the viewpoint of the tomato, with emphasising how it is treated as food. It also shows the viewpoint of house plants as decorations.
AI image training — AI assist me in illustrating my impressions of nature in urban environments. By using AI algorithms, I generate unique and artistic representations that blend elements of nature and urban landscapes. Generating images highlight the juxtaposition of grids, represent the system and rules of urban environments, while incorporating organic elements such as greenery sprouting from cracks.

Medium: Videos and images