Yiming Zhu

Yiming Zhu （b.1999) is an artist based in London and Guangzhou. She is studying photography at Royal College Art, UK. Her practice combines installation and moving images on the basis of photography. Her work starts from reality and focuses on the relationship between consciousness and human behaviour. How to express life experiences in a metaphorical way is the focus of her work. Through fictional memory elements, subconscious metaphors and imagination to form internal and external transformations, the audience is invited into a constructed visual narrative.

Recently, her work was shortlisted and exhibited in: PhMuseum Days International Photo Festival(2023), Off-Print, Tate Morden(2023), Felix Schoeller Photo Award(2023)， BACKSTROKE, London(2023), Graduates Art Fair, Wuhan(2023), JIMEI ARLES International Photo Festival—Photobook(2022).

Last year, I moved from China to London. Once I stepped into a new land, I couldn't wait to look for some spiritual connections to it, engaging me to better adapt and survive. The collision of memories, wandering shadows, and backtracking information... constantly lingered in my mind. I began to ask the hidden meaning behind identity and its impact on me.

The Orientals believe that all things have spirits, the belief in God has always existed imperceptibly in people's psychology and minds. We always hear it from elders by osmosis, or it may be something that we experience in the context of this culture. I am eager to find its meaning from a non-utilitarian perspective. My work is based on psychology, folklore, and hauntology research. I combine folklore, myth, and legend that are both Oriental and European, to explore the contemporary narrative of spirit and folklore culture. I've found many ambiguities behind the metaphors I work with. But at the same time, the uncertainty is something that fascinates me the most.

Summoning

I am interested in the Oriental spiritual world, especially the belief in gods that spring up in the long rivers of history. It comes from the thinking about the puzzle of an idea of natural order, and our life experience. Perhaps about the unknown and the mysterious? The beliefs I explore are related to elucidating life's problems and creating our sense of our identity.

After living in London, I am always curious about but also lost in new surroundings. Layers of uncertainty constantly ignite the memory of identity culture in my mind. An inner voice drives me to find my spiritual connection between two cultural backgrounds. Simultaneously I began to ask how the belief in gods subtly affects people's psychology and state of mind. How do metaphors support and reconstruct our lives?

The spiritual world is connected to culture, politics, personal lives and conditions, and histories. My inspirations come from folklore, fiction, legend and daily life. In my research I was intrigued that the same symbol often appeared and reappeared across different cultures. This implies a collective memory to me. It seems we share some meanings and beliefs with each other.

Grandma says that sticking a branch and hanging a garlic on Tomb-sweeping Day is to lead ancestors the way home.

“ Jiaobei” is a tool of Chinese folk belief to seek divine instructions. In the ancient folk tradition, people believe that is a tool to communicate with the god. The clamshell was thrown to the ground, and depending on its pitching situation, it could be judged as good or bad.