Art-making for me is a process of self-definition, an ongoing path, that will continue for years. Grown up in a small village beside a highway in the suburb of Beijing where I rolled in the grass and ate fruits from the trees, I came to know the world through intimate contact with nature and animals. Now I’m finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Art and Anthropology at Yale University. During my years of study in a foreign country, I often find myself entangled in the mesh and fusion of heterogeneous cultures and ideologies. My varied experience in diverse environments stimulates me to challenge the binary boundaries between the seemingly incompatible realms of nature and humanity as well as Eastern and Western cultures.

    In my performance Tree of Life (2015) that took place at Yale and Harvard, I sought to raise awareness for environmental and cultural conservation and to present an opportunity for multi-disciplinary dialogue in art and music. Accompanied by an originally composed piano melody, I wrote Chinese oracle-bone scripts to form a tree trunk and painted tree leaves on a silk canvas draped over a tree branch. I chose to write characters like “spring,” “heaven,” “blossom,” and “human” to worship both nature and the Chinese tradition that had nourished me. My exploration in interdisciplinary project continues in my latest work Still (2017)—an interactive installation that incorporates music and neuroscience and invites audience participation.

    I believe there are sounds, colors, and feelings that can evoke the collective consciousness that resides in the souls of people coming from different backgrounds, so I always strive to create dialectic and integrated artworks and communicate with the audience in a spiritual way.