Ziwei Lu

Ziwei Lu (1998, Guangdong, China) is a London and Hong Kong based artist whose practice and intellectual enquiry is led by her ongoing investigation in the body as a productive entity. Working with mass-produced and distributed objects and cultural symbols, Lu reflects on notions of labour and embodiment through performance-based moving image, photography, installation and writing.

Lu holds a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, where she graduated with First Class Honours. Her works had been exhibited internationally including Tate, UBS and Lee Tung Avenue.

Informed by my research on two collections of worker's poetry, namely "The Iron Moon" edited by Qin and "Nvgongji" written by Zheng, alongside mukbang content on various platforms, I explore the parallelism in the notion of work between factory workers and mukbangers. My focus revolves around the intimate connection between bodily labour and consumption, with a particular emphasis on carbohydrates. I contemplate how these working bodies rely on the energy derived from their own labour to perform more of it.

The notion of productive leisure in a post-Fordist society, the programmed and cultured nature of the body to be in a constant state of work become significant aspects of my inquiry. I reflect upon the accommodation of bodies in response to the demands of labour, whether it be within work, consumption, or exercise. This, in turn, leads me to examine the objects: tools and equipment we create to act and be acted upon. I find their embedded needs and desires intriguing, as they provide a gateway to contemplate the intricate relationships between labour, production, products, and consumption.