#1 Reforge my "repetition"
“Repetition” is a broad and often overused strategy—it can suggest labor, rhythm, or control, but also risks becoming a formal game. From the beginning, I was both drawn to and confused by it. What was I actually repeating? Why did it feel necessary?
To explore this, I looked to artists who use repetition in their core methods. Richard Wright’s hand-painted wall patterns, for example, are huge, precise, and completely erased after each show. Seeing his work at Camden Art Centre made me reflect on repetition as something that creates order only to let it go—labor not tied to outcome.
Martin Creed takes a more absurd approach. In Work No. 850, Runners dash through the gallery; other pieces repeat minimal actions, like filling a room with balloons or hitting the same musical note. His systematic titles—*Work No. ***—also inspired me. Numbering can strip work of uniqueness and highlight process over product.
Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds uses repetition to question mass production and individual identity. Millions of hand-painted seeds blur the line between craft and labor, individuality and system.
Learning from these artists helped me shift from a general idea of repetition to something rooted in my own process. In Unit 2, I’ve been making identical, faceless human figures—arranged into non-hierarchical columns. Though nearly the same, each figure bears subtle differences from the hand-making. Repetition has become not just a visual tool, but a structure, a memory trace, a quiet persistence that speaks for itself.
Richard Wright's solo exhibition at Camden Art Centre
Work No.850 Runners
Martin Creed
1 July – 16 November 2008, Tate Britain
Ai Weiwei, Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)
2010
one hundred million hand painted porcelain seeds
#2 OOO Object-Oriented Ontology
At the beginning of the second term, a lecture by Matthew De Kersaint Giraudeau on Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) was particularly inspiring. Although I didn’t fully grasp the theory at first, some keywords stayed with me, and I felt it might relate to my Unit 1 “hammer” project. I later researched OOO more deeply and gradually formed a basic understanding.
OOO suggests that an object’s value doesn’t come from its use to humans, but from its own independent existence. For example, a chair isn’t just “for sitting”—it exists as a structure, aging, interacting with light, dust, and space. This perspective made me reconsider my handle-less hammers. Though they could no longer perform as tools, they still had presence—shape, weight, silence. I realized my work was not just disabling function, but allowing the object to exist on its own terms.
This shift in thinking carried into my Unit 2 practice. I’m still exploring repetition, but I’ve moved from tools to human forms—removing individuality, turning the body into an object, and arranging them into a collective structure. Though I’m no longer directly applying OOO theory, its non-anthropocentric lens still influences me.
Instead of forcing a message or narrative onto my work, I now focus more on materials, arrangement, and structure. These elements create a quieter language—one that doesn’t need a speaker, but speaks through repetition and form.
#3 Different way of presenting works
During a group crit led by Yucheng and Matthew, I casually placed three faceless human figures on a white plinth—standard, clean, familiar. But seeing other presentations made me question that choice. For example, Rita arranged spice seeds in a circle on the floor, and unexpectedly, my sculptures were placed into this arrangement. The combination felt oddly effective, revealing expressive possibilities I hadn’t considered.
This moment made me realize that display is not secondary—it’s part of the work’s language. My habitual use of white plinths came from my undergraduate training in figurative sculpture at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, where works were always centered, upright, and formal. Even as my work moved toward abstraction, my presentation methods didn’t change. I now see that the way a piece is situated—its height, surface, context—shapes how it’s read.
From that point, I began rethinking both structure and spatial intention. I asked: what if what’s being repeated isn’t just a form, but the human body itself? In Unit 1, I had tried to humanize a tool—the hammer. This time, I’m reversing it: turning the human into a structural tool.
The result is a column built from repeated cast cement figures. Each is faceless, small, and looks like a mold. Bowing, kneeling, or holding themselves up, they blur the line between support and submission. As they stack into a single vertical form, it’s hard to tell if they’re upholding something—or being crushed. What interests me is that tension. The space is no longer neutral; it becomes part of the pressure.
Different way of combinations
Context #4 An extend on Khruchyovka building
The Khrushchyovka, as the backdrop of my childhood, first inspired my reflections on the relationship between architecture and sculpture in Unit 1. In my Unit 2 practice, I do not want to replicate this architectural type, but instead, I transform its qualities—collectivity, functionality, and structural order—into core concepts within my sculptural work.
In my current thinking, the faceless concrete human figures, leaning on and supporting one another, seem to form a cold, dense spatial system. I prefer to call this a kind of architecture. This architectural quality continues my perception of the Khrushchyovka: a standardized, disciplined living space that nevertheless contains genuine individual experiences of life within the collective. I see myself more as a "builder of structures" than a traditional sculptor—organizing bodies and weight into formations that feel grounded in memory while speaking to the present.
My current works are not really a tribute to the Khrushchyovka, but more of an abstract response to its emotional tone—a reflection on my own "muscle memory." Through the repetition and mutual support in these figures, I seek to capture the tension between personal experience and collective structure, and to explore how "the space I once lived in" holds emotion, memory, and social meaning. As I keep working in this direction, I begin to realize how my early life has quietly shaped the way I make art today—what materials I choose, how I compose forms, and the way my sculptures carry weight and presence—all of these decisions are subtly rooted in the experiences of my past.
Khrushchyovka Buildings in China