Yichen Li
About
Yichen Li (She/They) was born in China. She now lives in London. Her practice revolves around the sculpture, moving image and poetry. Her work is grounded in traditional Chinese aesthetics and personal experience, focusing on identity issue in a cross-cultural context, hidden spaces, and the relationship between architecture and sculpture.
Exhibitions
2022 The Bitten Peach, Asian Arts and Culture Trust, AACT Manifesto Space
2022 Soft And Hard , Bermondsey Project Space, London, UK
2022 Transforming, Transmissions Film Screening, Spanners, London, UK
2021 I Object, Freud Museum London, London, UK
2020 FutureLab, West Bund Artistic Center, Shanghai, China
2020 MADE IN MIND series II , Mcube Gallery, Lalitpur, Nepal
2020 Trans-Identity：Body，Soul and Time, No Space, Beijing, China
Collaboration
Dr TANG Ling (D.Phil. She/They) is an artist academic who considers sociology as art and vice versa. Ling like to play with various mediums - so far mainly words and songs - for her feelings and thoughts. The core of their praxis is feminism, queerness and what it means to be Chinese. Committed to public sociology and innovative methods, she is a lecturer in sociology at Open University.
Yichen Li & TANG Ling works as an artist duo.
Statement
Because of my traumatic experience, I currently pay a lot of attention to the material that concealed and became shelter, and my creation always concentrates on substances that provide me with a sense of security.
Screens are one of my main focuses, which have the function of concealment and can separate spaces. I perceive it as a reflection of my own circumstances, symbolizing both my search for refuge and the need for communication. The screen acts as a partial divider, creating a nuanced relationship between revealing and concealing. In addition, I also want to challenge the aesthetic paradigm of traditional Chinese aesthetics by developing the old forms, trying to build into a new and undefined effect full of possibilities which is something waiting to be recognised and interpreted.
In my past practice，fog is also a key point. I think fog is an intangible and immaterial substance and it can be a medium that has the same function of hiding something, it can fill a space. I consider smog, smoke and fog as living things that are fragile, subversive, ephemeral yet generous and all-encompassing.（for details: cargo）
Now I am researching the relationship between space and concealments which include immaterial versus material, tangible versus intangible, soft versus hard, imaginary versus real.
Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream
Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream
This is an installation featuring four intricately carved wooden screens that rotate. I tried to incorporate a significant number of curved carvings to deviate from the traditional square composition typically found in Chinese screens. The wooden frames showcase a range of newly crafted designs, including birds, flowers, animals, bird cages, and vases. Additionally, I have integrated a collection of carved wooden panels obtained from abandoned ancient villages in China. These symbols showcased in the installation draw inspiration from Chinese traditions spanning over 2000 years, from the Zhou Dynasty to the Ming or Qing Dynasties. The screens are interlaced and rotate to evoke the shifting scenery found in traditional Chinese gardens. This creates a dynamic installation that embodies a gestural interplay between exposure and concealment, fragility and flexibility.
The inspiration for this project stems from my personal journey as an international student residing in the UK. The unfamiliarity of the living environment and cultural landscape prompted me to deeply reflect on my cultural identity and individual existence. Consequently, I delved into themes such as homesickness, a sense of belonging, and cultural psychology.
The screen became the focal point of my exploration. I perceive it as a reflection of my circumstances, symbolizing both my search for refuge and the need for communication. On the one hand, the screen hides me from mainstream society, but on the other hand, it provides me with a small home, a refuge where I can hide myself behind a screen. But the screen is a more fluid one, it is not completely isolated like a door. Because the screen does not really separate the two spaces.The screen acts as a partial divider, creating a nuanced relationship between revealing and concealing. This symbolism represents the complex dynamic between the Chinese diaspora, student migration, and British society.
Simultaneously, the incorporation of traditional Chinese cultural symbols in my creations fosters a profound sense of cultural belonging, offering me solace and spiritual grounding. I have gathered aged carved wooden panels from dilapidated architecture, meticulously restoring and polishing them before embedding them onto the screens. This process seems to signify a gradual assimilation of these traditional cultural symbols into my own being.
Through this artwork, I aim to convey the struggles encountered within a cross-cultural context, as well as the enduring influence of traditional culture within myself. I aspire for this installation to evoke a fragile and poetic dream, embodying a fluid gesture that yearns for potential communication.
Medium: Wood
Size: 165 x 120 x 120cm
Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream (Trailer)
History is a process of constant forgetting. In deepest part of the dream, memories fade into cultural undertones, hidden and revealed in the flow of smoke. The work attempts to form an underlying communication and contemplation with a poetic quality and presents a concern for universal issues such as cultural memory, time, identity and so on. It exemplifies the artist's own belief that the implicit narrative of sculpture can be revealed and enriched in a time-based form. In this never-ending rotating sculpture, the self is undergoing a gradual journey from the external world to the inner self.
Medium: Moving image
Size: 01:34