Home is…? Opening Panel Discussion Recap
The opening panel for the online art exhibition Home is...? was organized by the UCBRC Arts and Culture Team, moderated by Yushan (Nancy) Chu, and held on September 26, 2020, via Zoom. We hereby bring a review of the wonderful discussions we had with artists and participants, focusing on the elusiveness and contestation of "home" in contemporary contexts and its relationship with art making. Three young artists, Buwei (Pratt Institute), Jianfei Lyu (Wellesley College), and Wenjuan Wan (Tsinghua University), joined us in the panel. While sharing a focus on the lived experience to explain what it means to feel “at home” or “out of place,” the artistic media they chose are different, including photography, painting, and installation. These individual modes of expression thus vividly reflect their own interpretations of home.
This recap is organized under five themes—the concept of home, artworks in the exhibition, the relationship between home and art making, the material form of home and sense of stability, and the future plans of artists. We hope to present the wonderful discussions and diverse expressions in the panel and generate resonance to "home" from the perspectives of philosophy and art.
The exhibition can be viewed at https://www.betterrelations.org/home-is until December 1st, 2020.
I. The Concept of Home
Q: First of all, can we have each artist briefly introduce your personal experience and your current state of artistic creation? Are you practicing art as a career, a major in school, or an interest? Right now the concept of "home" is constantly being reshaped by global migration and social changes; you all have also chosen to move outside of your hometowns for education, so how do you think these changes in geographical location and cultural setting have impacted you? How is it reflected in your works?
Jianfei: My concept of home has always remained at the geographic level, so the first semester of studying in the United States was rather uncomfortable. Because I have never moved since I was a child and have always been in a collective community, the sense of belonging to a family at the geographic level is still very strong, so that every time I come home, I still feel very emotional when I see familiar neighborhoods and scenery. But at the same time, I am curious about different cultures and want to go out to see new things, so I still always choose to leave. Going outside of my comfort zone can give me the opportunity to re-train and further shape myself, but only with a physical home behind can I have more motivation and courage to move forward.
Wenjuan: Since I am still studying at Tsinghua University and have not studied abroad yet, I have less cross-cultural experience. However, my work here does not fully show influences of the geographical environment despite me being immersed in Chinese culture. Even so, my own experience, culture, and temperament have been subtly integrated into the work.
Buwei: I actually did not stay in Wuhan, where I was born, for too long. I spent more than four years in Hangzhou and went to New York to study in 2019. To me, the concept of home is constantly changing in this process. I think home can bring a sense of stability, a sense of belonging, and a sense of relaxation, and these feelings mainly come from an inner understanding of oneself — clearly knowing “What am I doing? Why am I doing it?” These I think are more important than the external environment.
II. About the Artworks
About Jianfei’s photography series, Home is Where I Escape From and Where Haunts Me
Q: Jianfei, regarding your photography series, Home is Where I Escape From and Where Haunts Me, did you use any techniques or unique angles when taking the photographs?
Jianfei: I tend to use a third-person perspective when I take photographs, and my process of creation is usually experimental and exploratory. To me, shooting is a process of transforming ideas into reality, and it is often healing. When I was quarantining in my college in the US, photography soothed my anxiety and nervousness to a great extent. On top of this, when you observe an object closely and spend time with it, you can often find other perspectives—the exploration is also fascinating.
Q: Now that you are back in China, did the change in time and place imbue new meanings to your photographs? What angles did you use during the process? Did you have new findings and reflections in the familiar space?
Jianfei: This series belongs to the temporal space of the pandemic, and my feelings are sealed in that “space”. I feel like the impact the pandemic has on me is fading and my perception is getting farther and farther. When I was reading Japanese therapeutic literature in my dorm, my school seemed to turn into a sanatorium. I remember thinking that if my school suddenly became bustling again, I would be very stressed and have a hard time accepting it. However, when I went back home, life resumed to what it used to be—getting on crowded subways felt so familiar and natural. As such, I believe that what the pandemic leaves for this world will fade, and so being able to record it at the moment is valuable. Although these photos can bring me back to the state during the pandemic, it seems to be becoming more unfamiliar.
About Wenjuan’s installation work, Green Cocoon
Q: Your works are very delicate, and you often seek to use sensorial elements to resonate with people. Personally, what is the significance of using this exploratory approach?
Wenjuan: I see installation art as being constituted by three elements—people, objects, and space. It’s good if an installation work can mobilize all three, with people being the most fluid element that can activate the connection and resonance between the other two. My work starts from the sensorial so that the audience could interact with it because it is closely associated with the personal experience. The audience is not merely passive viewers; they can become a different kind of creators as well. During the interactive process, my work can bring physiological experiences. For example, if you touch the cocoons, you will find there are spots that are wet and those that are rigid. The exchange in the senses is very important to me.
Q: Does the hardness of the cocoon shell represent the contradiction within the idea of home? Are there symbolic meanings behind the materials, forms, and colors you use?
Wenjuan: Actually, green is very symbolic. For example, during the Middle Ages, green represented the devil or love, and now it could denote a sense of security and protection. We know that in colors, green is a neutral color, and I use green as the backdrop of my work as a metaphor for life. My reflections on life can thus blend into the green grass. In addition, the green grass field can not only mediate the contradictory elements within my work, it is also highly compatible with my own sensorial dispositions. My intuition tells me that using green as the background is the most comfortable and natural.
About Buwei’s painting, Pandemic
Q: Your work seems to be a record of your surroundings, but there are strong attitudes in your brushstrokes and colors. So how did this artistic language develop?
Buwei: I often sketch to record things in my life that interest me, but only the moment at the beginning is related to reality. The further I get, the more independent and less related to reality the work becomes. My works have their own inherent logic, and there are few things that language can explain. We can also say that the explanations provided by language is limited. Brushstrokes are a feeling of life, where everything is in flux. Some things can be perceived by the eye, such as people’s movements, but others are invisible, such as the flow of blood and breaths. I am interested in these fluidities, and so my brushstrokes are often related to the fluxion of life.
Q: Do you feel more stable or uncertain during the process of creation? To you, what is “recording”? What feelings does it bring to you? Does it make you focus more on the immediate sense of stability or embrace the uncertainty of the unknown?
Buwei: During the process of creation I feel relatively stable, but when it turns into paintings there are more uncertainties. When I create, I usually do not have a specific theme or proposition; almost all of the elements in my works come from the sketches and records of life. But when these works turn into paintings, they come to possess their own meanings. For example, when I am sketching, I try to sketch my cat, but when the sketch turns into a painting it is no longer that cat. For that reason, I focus more on the creation itself instead of a specific theme or meaning.
III. Relationship between Home and Art Making
Q: As the concept of "home" is now controversial at the individual and societal levels, it also provides endless material for artistic creation. Let’s ask a broader question: what do you think is the relationship between "home" and artistic creation? In other words, does art provide a unique way for us to understand and appreciate the complexity of home?
Jianfei: Home seems to be turning into a theme of loneliness and melancholy nowadays. For us living in the modern era, sometimes the farther we go, the more we wish to go home, and the more we want to explore our roots and concepts of belonging. Part of us longs to experience the larger world far from home, but another part irresistibly takes us back to our roots. Perhaps the journey of traveling faraway becomes a way to get closer to our homeland, because it allows us to see and experience more about the world. Maybe one day I will return to what was originally defined as "home," and that home may have changed. For creators, home may always be the place that we build and imagine.
Wenjuan: The theme of home is infinite, and art itself provides a breeding ground for interpretation of its complexity, so the concept “home” has a partnership with artistic creation. The theme of "home" stimulates the creation of art itself and pushes us to think about our relationship with and meaning of home. What's more, the works created by artists may inspire and transmit ideas, communicate and resonate with more audiences, and inspire more ways of understanding in the process of establishing connections.
Buwei: Home is a sense of belonging and security, and I like to focus on painting itself when I create. I don't like to use painting to show other meanings or excessive symbolism, for example, to express social and politics issues, etc. I am more focused on the process of painting itself.
IV. The Form of Home and Sense of Stability
Q: Is home a fixed place? Or have we taken insecurity for granted? Finally, back to the core of our panel: is home necessarily a fixed place? How do we find the "stability" of home in the midst of constant migration, or have we actually accepted "instability" as the norm?
Jianfei: It's important to feel the stability at home, because when you're optimistic, you're more open to seeing the world and getting more out of yourself. However, the sense of security at home may also be a disadvantage for creation. Perhaps the excessive sense of encapsulation will make the individual lose the spirit of resistance and rebellion. With such a strong awareness, I wanted to leave soon after I returned to Beijing, so I decided to volunteer in Huangshan for a month. During this month, the new environment gave me a certain sense of calmness. It was very warm, but at the same time it had a lot more freedom than the traditional fixed home. Therefore, stability is only temporary, instability is the norm. The new environment will help us release many of the stereotypes and fixed values we had before and will force us to live a new life. The state of constant rebellion and confrontation seems to be more permanent and long-lasting.
Wenjuan: Instability is normal for me. Having lived in so many places since I was a child, home is hardly a fixed place. The global population is moving all the time, and social mobility is increasing, so fewer people regard "home" as one place. Finding home wherever I am has gradually become my norm. More and more people are on the move, but a sense of security and belonging is what they need to find. In the modern day and age, people may need to find emotional sustenance, such as the belief in their own heart, art, or love. This sustenance is often associated with their own "love".
Buwei: Home is not a fixed place, but a sense of security comes from the heart. It roots from having a clear enough sense of who I am: what I like, why I should like it, and why I act. This sense of stability is called the feeling of “home”.
V. Future Directions
Q: What are your future directions? Will there be any changes or transformations in your artistic creations?
Jianfei: I want to try some new ways of photography like digital cameras and digital media instead of utilizing the film camera that I was used to creating artworks. But I’m still in the stage of exploration.
Wenjuan: Although I haven’t formed a constant artistic style yet, I’m still exploring gradually. Recently, I’ve been delving into researching and learning the forms of colors as well as learning more about some artists at the beginning of the 20th century. I started to pay more attention to the brushworks and then unconsciously combine certain elements with my own paintings. At this stage, I want to focus more on things I’m particularly interested in and to observe and reflect on the surroundings in a more detailed way.
Buwei: Maybe I won’t not change the media I use, because oil painting is the most convenient and appropriate channel for me to express the things I want. In comparison with other media, which may not easy to preserve, transport, or utilize, oil painting is the medium that I am the best at and is the most direct. As such, I will continue to create paintings. When I was in college, there was a professor who held quite extreme opinions regarding ‘painting’ as an outdated art form, whereas installation art or video art are the new trend. It's true that many people are now pursuing the conceptual art, but after studying in the U.S., I discovered that there are still a great number of people who are still pursuing drawing and painting. I feel like it's almost an instinct or an original impulse for humans to draw; it is innate.
Conclusion
The three artists have their own insights on cognition, sense of stability, and ideas about how to integrate their perceptions of "home" to artistic creations. Perhaps the "stability" that home or the hometown brings us is from our heart, perhaps the so-called "stability" is only temporary, or perhaps the sense of “stability” itself is the memory and imagination created by ourselves. As mentioned in the panel, however, creation based on the theme of "home" is endless: because it is not only a symbol of belongingness but also a process of finding roots.
Participants in the panel also pointed out ideas worth further pondering, such as the difference between "home" and "family” and the different interpretations between the East and the West. With the changes in the social and economic structures, cultural integration has enabled people to understand "home" in new, non-traditional ways, but root-seeking and a sense of belonging are still important to many. Nowadays, what are we longing for when we are looking for "home"? How will the social developments and changes influence the future consciousness of "home"? We hope that theopening panel of our art exhibition will prompt you think deeper about these issues.
Written by Ziqi Fu
Translated from Chinese by Ziqi Fu, Yuejia Li, Xiaoruo Cao, Yushan Chu, Yanni Li
Edited by Yanni Li, Yushan Chu
