2025-06-09 18:14
Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
Ji Wenyu: Before 2004, I primarily worked in easel painting, while my wife Zhu Weibing was in clothing design. I was quite lost in my painting practice at that time, the biggest issue was that there were no more issues. Whatever I wanted to do, the result was predictable. There was no novelty, no anticipation, and no new possibilities. It was a big crisis for me. One day, I was talking to Zhu Weibing about art. She told me she also felt lost in clothing design and wanted to transition into contemporary art, though she still kept a strong passion for fabric. We both felt that fabric might be an excellent starting point for our future creations, even though we both had a great different opinions about it. Fabric to me is stubborn. It doesn’t obey me, it’s contrary, it has its own material qualities. But that’s exactly what opened up new possibilities for me. From then on, we became a duo, and we’ve continued ever since.
Zhu Weibing: I studied clothing design, but I’ve always dreamed of making art. Back in 2003, during a conversation with Ji Wenyu, we instantly hit it off. We decided to use the fabric as a material we familiar with to experiment with it and making art.
How do you stay inspired and motivated to create new work?
Ji Wenyu: Over the past thirty years, China has underthrough tremendous changes. We’ve constantly been learning from the outside world, while also continuously drawing inspiration from our own culture. We’ve witnessed transformations in our society, lifestyle and people’s mindsets. Every one of these changes compels us to feel, to experience, and to reflect. Our artistic practice is simply an attempt to express those sensations as accurately as possible.
Zhu Weibing: I believe that creativity stems from the subtle perceptions of everyday life, and from the urge to express and connect. I often feel a strange sense of doubt or illusion about my current life circumstances. Maybe it’s that restless mindset that pushes me to explore the unknown. And art happens to be a form of expression that I’m both good at and genuinely enjoy!
How did you both start working together as a team?
Ji Wenyu: We discuss everything together, and sometimes we argue with each other. When we really can’t reach an agreement, we just set it aside for a while and revisit it later. Once we come to a shared understanding, we think about how to turn it into a piece of work. During the process, disagreements still pop up, so we keep adjusting. That’s how we’ve continued working together until now. Sometimes we even interpret the same work differently, but we’re still able to complete it together as a unified piece.
Zhu Weibing: As a married couple, we share many perspectives, but we also have many different opinions. There’s a saying in Chinese: “seeking common ground while reserving differences.” I think the friction and mutual adjustments we go through are actually a process of growing together.
Is there a particular piece of work that feels especially meaningful to you? Why?
Ji Wenyu: Every work for us carries its own significance, it’s hard to rank them. But there’s one project I’d like to talk about. In 2018, under the national push to preserve tulou (earthen architecture) and promote the “New Countryside” initiative, we were invited to Nanping, Fujian, to create a site-specific piece. With the acceleration of urbanization, many rural residents had left for the cities to work, and some had permanently relocated. What remained was a landscape of rural desolation. I stood in front of a crumbing earthen house, its roof and interior wooden structures had completely disappeared. Nearly half the walls had collapsed, and the wild grass had grown waist-high. In the glow of the setting sun, the scene felt like the end of a ruined world.
The proposal was as follows:
The collapsed sections of the walls would be “restored” imaginatively using white cotton ropes (1 cm in diameter). Within these rope-based reconstructions, we would maintain doorways and windows scaled to the human body. At first glance, it would appear to be a restoration. One half of the structure would remain as the original, solid earthen wall; the other half, a ghostly reconstruction made of lightweight rope. The contrast between the heavy structure and the fabricated rope both highlight the act of rebuilding and subtly reveal the site’s abandonment.
The work aimed to explore the tension and interplay between natural decay and human intervention. In doing so, we hoped to prompt reflection: What does it mean when a ruin stands? And what does it mean when we attempt to “restore” it? It was also meant to imply the importance of preservation.
In the end, the rope walls only lasted two weeks. The government stepped in and funded to reconstruct the site, and brought the former relocated villagers back to rebuild the house. In a way, we felt a sense of pride as the projec revealed the essense of the place.
Zhu Weibing: Most of our works are not created for specific projects, they usually arise from a spontaneous emotional impulse. So many of our pieces are expressions of how we felt at a certain moment in a specific context. Take our 2013 piece “Climb, Upward” as an example. At the time, the broader social atmosphere was energetic, ambitious that everyone seemed to be striving upward. We were also at a stage in life when we were full of energy. But then one day, we suddenly realized that we had been taught to be successful and wealthy was the definition of a positive life. Everyone was climbing upwards, but what is the next step when you climed to the top? Thats when things started to feel confusing and disorienting. This work came directly from the specific emotional state, and i do not think this confusion was just personal. Its probably a question relate to the entire generation that we have not really figured out.
What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?
Ji Wenyu: As I mentioned earlier, before 2004 I was focused solely on easel painting. My work was quite popular at the time, but I began to experience a personal crisis. I felt like I was producing art for clients every day, and there was no longer any sense of creative excitement. If I continued down that path, I feared both my spirit and my artistic language would wither. Most importantly, I felt I had lost the sense of new possibility.
Then one day, I had a conversation about art with my wife. We started talking about fabric, and gradually I became excited by the material. Fabric is soft, resistant to shaping, and even when you manage to shape it, it’s hard to reproduce the same form again. For someone trained as a painter, this presented an obvious challenge. Its unpredictability defies control, yet that unpredictability can bring unexpected surprises. It demands the artist’s sensitivity to fully grasp its potential. Its flaws, in fact, are what make its character stand out. In some ways, it’s anti-sculptural. You can fill it with cotton and make it a solid three-dimensional form, or you can remove the stuffing, or only partially fill it, so it slumps and softens. You can drape it over a chair, a table, or any object, and it will conform to the object’s form while still asserting its own presence. It can completely envelop another shape and draw attention not just to what it covers, but to the beauty of the fabric itself. You can also hang it, and under the influence of wind or other forces, it floats, curls, sways. It’s casual, adaptable, warm, but not easy to manipulate. It has its own temperament, its own personality. It blends all of these traits together and emits endless possibilities. That was when I felt my crisis relieved. It was also the beginning of my collaboration with my wife, Zhu Weibing.
Zhu weibing: In the beginning, the biggest challenge for me in our artistic practice was how difficult it was to control the material. Even though I came from a background in clothing design, art-making is a completely different process. I had to find new ways of working that aligned with our conceptual approach. Some of the techniques I knew from clothing and toy-making gave me initial inspiration, but they weren’t enough for what we wanted to express. I didn’t want to be confined by those conventions. So early on, we made a rule for ourselves: the work must not look like a toy, must not look like a craft object, and must not look like folk art.
Another challenge was the fact that, as a female artist, I was often overwhelmed by daily responsibilities. I had to learn to cut out the unnecessary demands of everyday life whenever possible, and to regularly reflect inward and adjust my mindset. I believe this kind of inner work has been deeply helpful to my artistic process.
What advice would you give to emerging artists trying to establish themselves?
Ji Wenyu: Consistently produce strong works that resonate with the times, continually communicate their artistic vision and ideas to their audience, and keep holding exhibitions so that audiences and collectors can better understand the work, and allowing more people to appreciate both the artists and their art.
Zhu Weibing: Genuinely love creating art. Make what you love, make what others might love, and share just enough of yourself to let people in.
Related Artists: JI WENYU & ZHU WEIBING 计文于-朱卫兵
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