10 Questions with Jing Zhao

Jing Zhao was born in Shanghai in 1994. She holds an MFA in Photographic & Electronic Media from the Maryland Institute College of Art, an MS in Museums & Digital Culture from Pratt Institute, and a BA in Photography from the China Academy of Art. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Her works were included in art exhibitions internationally, including: “The Story of Finding Differences,” OCAT Institute, Beijing, China, 2019; “Looking-Glass Self,” The Gateway, Baltimore, MD, 2018; “Mirror,” Cardinal Space, Baltimore, MD, 2018; “abC Book Fair,” Shanghai 21st Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2016.

www.zhaojing.asia | @jaynechao

ARTIST STATEMENT

Jing Zhao is an artist who explores ideological transformations in this time of accelerated information circulation and cultural diaspora. Zhao was trained as a photographer, and her research-based practice is rooted in the tradition of conceptual art. As a result, she works across a broad range of mediums. Through photography, video, and sound, as well as weaving fictional and occasionally autobiographical narratives, her works produce surreal yet touching scenarios, which move the viewer emotionally towards empathy and contemplation of the intersection of the philosophical questions of everyday life. She takes her condition as her subject, unpacking themes that hit home for the millennial generation, such as bittersweet memories; displacement experiences; and universal loneliness.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Who is Jing Zhao in three words? 

Hi, everyone! My name is Jing Zhao. I am a multi-disciplinary artist currently living in Brooklyn, New York. I work with various mediums, including photography, video, sound, text, drawings, and ready-made objects. Through weaving fictional and occasionally autobiographical narratives, my work touches on subjects such as identity, memories, displacement, and loneliness, producing surreal yet touching scenarios which move the viewer emotionally towards empathy and contemplation. I consider myself a sensitive, curious, and logical artist. Sensitivity keeps me alert about my conditions and surroundings. Curiosity leads me to search for answers. Logical thinking helps me express my ideas calmly and accurately. 

What is your artistic background? And how did your studies influence your art today? 

I studied photography and related media in China and America. As I worked through the rigors of a BA in Photography at the China Academy of Art and an MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art, I sensed both the relationship between contemporary art in China and that of the American spheres and have also come to understand distinct differences that each of these fields represents. The technologies I learned, and the experience of cultural differences in these two countries profoundly influenced the work I produce. 

What are the fundamental experiences that shaped yourself and your artistic practice? 

I was born under the one-child policy in China, which refers to a population planning initiative China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country’s population growth by restricting many families to a single child. I grew up in an environment where the first generation of China emphasized individuality so much, without the challenge of sibling rivalries. Also, the advantages afforded by the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s meant that kids like me grew up with boundless opportunities and ever-increasing resources. When I was a teenager, my after-school life was filled with cartoons, comics, video games, and imported music albums. Among my countless hobbies, shoujo manga (an editorial category of Japanese comics targeting an audience of adolescent females and young adult women) was one of my few passions. The delicate psychological descriptions and monologues of each character in shoujo manga have resonated deeply with me. The impact of the one-child policy, foreign cultures, and the enthusiasm for shoujo manga made me pay too much attention to myself, my appearance, and my spiritual world. Naturally, those influences also triggered my interest in expressing myself through creating works of art. My artistic practice started from there.

As you mention in your statement, you primarily work with researched-based projects. How do you conduct your research? How do you gather information, and how do you use this information in your work?

The starting point of my work was often my immediate surroundings, and I use everyday objects to explore the intersection of the philosophical questions of daily life and the influences of contemporary media. Also, I persist in offering integrated presentations that would illuminate everyday objects that could be easily ignored in their original context. To contextualize my creative work, I pair my practice with research in theories. My preferred way of gathering information is reading books. One example of this is my multimedia project Looking-Glass Self which considers self-construction in the digital age, taking reference from books like Mediated Memories in the Digital Age (José van Dijck, Stanford University Press, 2007), which explores how media technologies will penetrate our intimate routines and shape individual remembrances, A Networked Self (Edited by Zizi Papacharissi, Routledge Press, 2010) - a survey-based collection examines self-presentation through networks of social connections in new media environments, and The Filter Bubble (Eli Pariser, Penguin Press, 2012), which reveals how the new personalized web leads us to live in our own, unique information universe. With the clues pointed out by these theories, I kept documenting everyday events through my camera, smartphone, laptop, and online profile to search for potential narratives in the massive inventory. To reveal the concept appropriately, I considered making the installation as flat as possible to let viewers see this project as if they were looking in a mirror. Through careful editing and specific spatial manifestation, I tried to present a unique viewing perspective in this work.

You work with different mediums like photography, video, and sound. How do you choose which medium is more suitable for a specific project?

Although I was trained as a photographer, my practice is rooted in the tradition of conceptual art, which emphasizes that forms are put into play to construct meaning. I would do lots of experiments and frequently share my process with my friends to see their reactions until I found the proper way of presentation. As a result, each of my works is exhibited in a unique form, using the most appropriate medium to express my idea. Some are multimedia installations of different mediums that form the enriched experience I want the audiences to feel. My work Midnight Vortex is a representative attempt based on this methodology. This work consists of travel photographs I took in different places, dreams I remembered when I woke up, illustrations I created based on both, and mysterious sounds I recorded. Each medium acts differently, but together they harmoniously weave the intertextual narratives I initially imagined. The installation intends to show the complex relations between viewing, imagination, cities, and memory. By slowly investigating this work, the audiences can experience a comprehensive navigation of body, heart, and spirit, from the preconscious to the subconscious and then to the superconscious - the three conscious behaviors in psychology.

Speaking of themes, your work reflects on personal experiences to address common themes to the millennial generation. How do you choose which experience to work with? And how do you transform your personal experiences into universal messages? 

This is a question I often ask myself. I didn’t always know which experience could be universal. Some themes I later continuously worked on actually originated from my early experiments. In 2015, I created the photography series Farewell after I exited a romantic relationship. In this work, I sorted out old photographs containing objects that used to belong to my lover and compared the ‘ex’ object with their ‘current’ look in a trash bin. For me, it was a ritual and a funeral. The shredded objects, raindrops, and the orange color of the trash bin allude to my turbulent emotions beneath the calm surface. In another work, From Langjun to Fangjia Fan (2015), I used a laser pointer to illuminate the straight-line distance between my new and old apartment. At the same time, I rode on a bike, crossed the winding roads and streets, and rode towards the old apartment. The whole process was to remember the feeling of displacement and memorialize the bond between my old friends and me. I didn’t expect those two works to receive good comments, but the viewers (most of them are millennials) appreciated that I opened up myself. They said the struggles revealed honestly in my works reminded them of similar experiences. At that point, I was aware that the themes I took on, such as bittersweet memories and the feeling of displacement, could be shared universally. 
In my later practices, I started to create a ‘real’ feeling in my work while blurring the directivity of the presentations and focusing on how to give more space for the audience to interpret freely. For example, in 2016, I carried out an art project - 2202 with my photographer friend Yanjun Li when we were living together in room 2202 in an apartment. My photos and hers are juxtaposed in the exhibition. They look matching, forming a dialog, but do not constitute any episodic narrative. So, this work is basically a Tangrams Puzzle without a fixed result. Each viewer can piece it together differently based on their own experiences. I believe this is the key to making my work more relatable to others.

Does art have a significant role in addressing such themes? 

As long as my artistic career started, I fervently wanted to find out who I am as a unique individual and convey this in my art. Some of my self-portrayal works were triggered by my emotions, some were inspired by my immediate surroundings, and some were aroused by my childhood memories. All of them are attributed to my enthusiasm for exploring the theme of identity, which was and still is one of the key themes of the art world.
How you view yourself, how you view others, and how the world views you - these fundamental dimensions of identity have been discussed over centuries in almost every culture form. Throughout recent history, art has played a significant role in addressing this theme. Many of the greatest artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Kahlo, invested a certain amount of energy in recording their own likenesses. In the postwar period, American pop artists Andy Warhol and Alex Katz produced influential prints and paintings that included a range of self-portraits. Closer in time to the present, contemporary artworks of note, Iranian Artist Shirin Neshat’s self-portraits covered with enigmatic texts in Farsi calligraphy, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s self-portraits capturing him dropping a Han Dynasty Urn. Those two works iconically made the names themselves. Human identity and art have always been intrinsically and deeply linked. Each artist of talent who took up this theme revitalized it with their unique style. 

Is there any other medium, technique, or theme you would like to incorporate into your work? 

As one of the branches of my research on the theme of identity, I plan to incorporate “narcissism” into my work. Occasionally, I saw an excellent quote:

“......Perhaps the simplest way into a culture and age is to ask: What do people worship? People have worshiped many different things, the sun, the stars, and the storm. Some people worship many gods, some none. In the 19th and 20th centuries, people worshiped the nation, the Aryan race, and the communist state. What do we worship? I think future anthropologists will look at the books we read on self-help, self-realization, and self-esteem. They will look at the way we talk about morality as being true to oneself, the way we talk about politics as a matter of individual rights, and they will look at this wonderful new religious ritual we have created. Called the “selfie.” And I think they’ll conclude that what we worship in our time is the self, the me, the I…….” (Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, How we can face the future without fear together, TED Talk published in July 2017)

This speech may be too general. But it greatly influenced my practice afterward and pointed out that “narcissism” is an exciting and relevant topic to dig deeper into. Several of my works, such as Jayne Chao Raising Program and Looking-Glass Self, hint at this theme at some point. I’m continuously researching this topic and planning to make a series of works soon. Untitled (I don’t understand my feeling) is one of the experimental videos I created based on it. 

You have worked and exhibited internationally; what do you think of the art world? Do you see any difference in the approach artists and people have towards art in different areas or countries? 

In my participation and visits to exhibitions of contemporary art internationally over the past several years, I was aware that the world of contemporary art is rich, diverse, unpredictable, and constantly expanding. Despite contemporary art's diversity and rapid transformations, understanding and participating in its discussions can take time and effort. 
Influenced by the respective historical cultures, beliefs, geographical, political, and technological environments, contemporary artists from the East and the West express similar topics differently. During my time in Shanghai and New York, the most apparent fact I observed is that many American artists are outspoken about various social issues, and their works are pretty straightforward and innovative. On the contrary, Chinese contemporary artists are often reserved in their expressions, paying more attention to the implication conveyed by their works and willing to inherit the traditional methods. Based on my understanding, the variations were not only caused by the political environments or related factors but also by the different ways of development between Western and Eastern art history. Contemporary art was developed from the writing of Western art history, which basically reflects its value by negating the previous stage at each stage. The works must leave space for conceptual interpretation. However, to speak briefly, the development of Eastern art history is around how to make art richer and more attractive on the basis of traditional methods. Thus, to correctly interpret today's art from different regions, I always need to switch perspectives and search for contextual information. 

Lastly, what are you working on? What are your future projects?

I recently received a Master of Science in Museums and Digital Culture from Pratt Institute. Before that, as an adjunct to my artistic work, I was engaged in several art institutions, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Chinese in America, to execute art documentation, media production, and curatorial collaborations. Having studied and practiced industrial methodologies and technologies, I plan to employ these approaches throughout my future projects and help art institutions fulfill their missions to provide access to knowledge.