2026-02-28 12:49
1. Work Sharing
The lecture began with Liu Yi’s exhibition The Hedgehog’s Dilemma at the Zhejiang Art Museum in October 2022, and her works were viewed one by one, including Fire, On the Origin of Evolution, Mornings and Dusks That Require No Management, I Really Want to Like You, Prickles and Bubbles, A Crow Cawed All Day, Baishui Lang, Spring River Flower Moon Night, and Du Kou.
Origin of Species
During her undergraduate studies at the School of Intermedia Art, Liu Yi attempted to paint on A4 sheets marked with serial numbers. She drew more than a thousand drafts in a flipbook format, creating hand-flip books. As the camera turned rapidly, the concept of time was injected into painting, thus forming moving paintings.
Upon graduating from her undergraduate program, Liu Yi began with the concept of “moving painting” and produced her first ink animation, On the Origin of Evolution, thereby beginning her video creation.
This animation, in a simple and unrefined style, tells the story of a bacterium entering the world of the human eye and launching a revolution.
The inspiration originated from Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, which sparked Liu Yi’s speculation on whether humans could transform from higher to lower forms, thereby creating this bacterium’s revolution.
Morning and Dusk, and No More
In 2019, Liu Yi went to Cyprus as an artist-in-residence. As a traveler, she walked through streets and alleys with a camera to observe the lives of local residents, and this film was born.
Vrionis, the village secretary who hosted her, was also the only young person in the village. By chance, Liu Yi glimpsed his family life: he and his mother carefully cared for his intellectually disabled sister.
This allowed Liu Yi to directly understand the extraordinary group of caregivers of people with intellectual disabilities, as well as their living conditions and pressures.
Compared to other works, this film is longer and incorporates more dialogue and narrative. Through these plain details and moments, viewers feel warmth, love, and the familial bonds hidden beneath everyday life.
In Morning and Dusk, and No More, “morning and dusk” actually represent each day. Whether our days need deliberate management is also a question posed to everyone.
I Really Want to Like You
“I Really Want to Like You” presents the transient state of a hedgehog and a balloon sharing the same space — one step forward is liking, one step backward is retreat.
In this short film, the coexistence of the hedgehog and balloon creates an unresolved problem: the hedgehog’s spikes prevent it from experiencing true intimacy.
This is a contest between reason and instinct, an entanglement between longing and reality.
A Crow Cawed All Day
Created after Liu Yi returned from a 17-day trip to India during her graduate studies in 2016, this work combines video and animation.
In terms of materials, she used textured xuan paper to achieve a vibrating texture in the animation.
Much of the film depicts scenes on trains, expressing the passage of time while portraying people of different social classes and symbolic images of Indian beliefs.
The title comes from Liu Yi’s impression of the noisy crows filling the streets of India. They fly over the roofs of slums and over the balconies of the wealthy; in India, the crow — regarded as a “sacred bird” — is the least hierarchical species.
Using bamboo poles, hemp rope, and fabric curtains, Liu Yi arranged the installation like drying laundry. Viewers move through it to watch the images, just as she traveled through Indian cities by train.
The Earthly Men
This work is Liu Yi’s attempt at vertical video. Xuan paper was suspended over a lightbox, and six manuscripts were layered to form the image.
Compared to horizontal format, vertical format significantly alters narrative method and image structure. The sequence of storytelling and the entry and exit of characters differ from previous modes of expression.
The Earthly Men is like duckweed — a lonely person.
The film creates a moving space floating on the sea, continuously searching between fictional and real life for the self and the world we are unwilling to face.
Spring River Flower Moon Night
This stage work was completed last year through cross-disciplinary collaboration between Liu Yi and teacher Cheng Long of the Shanghai International Dance Center and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music.
She divided it into five poetic themes:
Spring · River · Flower · Moon · Night
In the presentation, Liu Yi used the screen as a carrier, integrating two-dimensional imagery with the movements of dancers in three-dimensional space, the motion of installations such as black sand funnels, and light and shadow.
On stage, suspended cones released colored sand. Dancers pushed hourglass-like devices, allowing sand to flow slowly and paint the stage.
Liu Yi also shared four earlier paintings from this project. Using thermosensitive materials and semiconductor-controlled heating circuits, the images change, forming ink diffusion effects.
This also corresponds to reflections on time and spatial imagination in the poem — such as in the painting “Fish and dragons dive and leap, the water forms ripples.” When the image is completely black, we do not know whether something immense exists beneath the water.
2. Dialogue with Liu Yi
Q: What logic underlies your thematic choices?
A: My early works such as Chaos Chronicle explored painting materials and animation mechanics. Later themes arose from my experiences during residencies in Cyprus, France, Korea, Singapore, and elsewhere. I incorporate selected observations into my own stories, preserving what I value through painting.
Q: Why choose ink as a material?
A: For Chinese people, ink is something embedded in our bones.
For example, in Du Kou, I attempt to recreate childhood memories — such as ink spreading naturally on a notebook when writing with a fountain pen. This medium relates to daily life.
Sometimes I place ink in three-dimensional space, such as at MoCA Shanghai, where I incorporated street shadows, projections, and reflections created by viewers’ transparent shoe covers on mirrored surfaces to achieve an ink-like light effect.
Q: How do you use AI and C4D?
A: Previously, every animation was drawn frame by frame by hand; a five-to-six-minute animation could take one to two years.
Now I experiment with AI teams. GAN algorithms can learn my style and generate in-between frames, completing repetitive work and giving me more time to focus on editing and storytelling.
AI can reduce about one quarter of the workload, though ink diffusion remains technically difficult to isolate digitally.
Q: Do exhibition spaces affect presentation?
A: Even the same work will be presented differently depending on local culture and environment.
For example, when Du Kou was exhibited in Suzhou, I adapted it to the garden architecture by presenting mirrored “water reflections” and designing the space as a pavilion over a lake.
Q: How do animation and live footage connect in A Crow Cawed All Day?
A: In the studio I am like an animation worker, constantly drawing; outside I become a traveler with a camera.
Video records what is seen; animation expresses what cannot be recorded — imagination. Their combination allows reality and fantasy to interweave.
Q: Is curating part of your creation?
A: I consider works spatial and often integrate curatorial thinking during creation.
Q: What is your creative routine?
A: Animation requires extensive time. I usually draw from 7am to 11pm daily.
Residencies are another state — stepping outside the studio.
I divide my yearly schedule into clear production stages.
Q: How can contemporary ink explore new possibilities?
A: Ink is a medium.
Do not constrain yourself with labels like contemporary or traditional ink.
Even the misty rain and clouds of Hangzhou resemble ink — experience such things and value your own perceptions.
Related Artists: LIU YI 刘毅
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