Interview and text by Lai Fei
“As an artist, my aim is not to construct an idealized tableau; instead, I endeavor to depict a world imbued with imperfections—although it might run parallel to our empirical reality, it maintains connections, fissures, and backdoors.”
Hu Yun conceptualizes his artistic endeavors as embodiments of "travel." This doesn't imply a necessity for extensive fieldwork for the creation of his art pieces; rather, his artwork initiates a journey of exploration that is inherently open-ended. Intriguingly, the impetus for this relentless traveler's creative odysseys often stems from narratives of erstwhile globetrotters. Viewing the artworks displayed at an exhibition as a terminus of a creative expedition reveals the substantial divergence from the artist's original point of departure. The initial inspirations or narratives that catalyzed each art piece often become obscured, rendered invisible within the final presentation's material and linguistic manifestations. For Hu Yun, archival documents—which are essential for research-oriented artists—are mere points of departure. Hence, he prefers to describe his creative process as "revisiting familiar territories." The gathering of preliminary data and narratives sets an initial framework, akin to revisiting a locale transformed by the passage of time. His solo exhibition "Mount Analogue" at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai (which continues until August 25th) epitomizes such a revisitation. His decade-long exploration into the historical development of museums in China is revisited within the precincts of one of China's inaugural museum buildings, thus returning the Shanghai-born artist to his initial point of inception.
"Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", installation view, 2024, image courtesy of the artist and Rockbund Art Museum, photo by Yan Tao
Lai Fei: How did your interest in natural history museums begin?
Hu Yun: In 2010, I was fortunate enough to participate in the artist-in-residence program at "Gasworks" in London. This program was quite fascinating as it had a very specific work agenda requiring the artist to conduct research daily at the Natural History Museum in London. The museum housed some unique collections that had not previously been exhibited to the public. The museum aimed to appoint artists who would spend time understanding these collections and then create a new piece of work. During my residency, my daily routine resembled going to a job, complete with a staff pass to access these collections. This residency was a significant opportunity for me because similar accessibility is quite rare in public institutions back home. The Natural Hunter Museum in London epitomizes the quintessential traditional museum, illustrating the gradual establishment of the global museum system. In 2010, the topic of colonial history had not yet kindled substantial discussion within the art circles in China. My time in London inspired me to view colonial history from the perspective of natural history—a complex and indescribable segment of history.
Lai: Did the residency program have specific requirements regarding your research scope and creative work?
Hu: It was a three-year project that invited three artists to study and create works based on collections from different periods from colonies or semi-colonies of China, Australia, and India. My research focused mainly on the private collection of John Reeves (1774–1856) from China. This research also inspired the installation piece The Secret Garden: Reeves's Pheasant (2012–2015) at the Rockbund Art Museum exhibition. Reeves was a tea inspector for the East India Company and lived in Guangzhou for 19 years. During his time in Guangzhou, he employed local painters who specialized in export art to produce numerous drawings of flora and fauna for him and collected many specimens, including live birds, through his own channels. He was the first to bring the live Reeves’s Pheasant to Europe, and consequently, this species of bird is named after him in English as "Reeves’s Pheasant”.
During my residency, my primary task was to study Reeves's collection at the Natural History Museum in London, which mainly consisted of over 2000 watercolor paintings. These paintings are intriguing; they do not follow the traditional Western natural history painting style, and somewhat resemble Chinese meticulous brush painting. They cannot exactly be regarded as works of art, but rather as functional products—since photography did not exist at that time, these paintings served as a medium to aid natural science research. None of these paintings bear the artist's signature. The museum required me to create a piece based on these collections within the three months of my residency.
One approach I took was attempting to trace the identities of these painters, but I could find little relevant information. There is a wealth of material concerning Reeves, including all his diaries. Eventually, in one of Reeves’s notebooks, I found four names, but they were not formal Chinese names; they were Cantonese nicknames transliterated into English. My situation, being commissioned by the museum to create artwork, somewhat resembled how these painters had been employed by Reeves to paint; we were both being "commissioned" to view our own history.
In the end, I made a video in which I wrote down these four names along with my own on a wooden plank, then chiseled those names off. The video was played in reverse and looped, creating the appearance that I was incessantly wiping away the names. I also drew some small works on paper in London; before leaving, I donated them to the museum's collections department, with one stipulation: my works on paper were to be placed together with Reeves’s entire paper collection, unmarked with my name, simply noted as an anonymous contribution.
Memorialize Memory (still), 2010, HD video, 16:9, 5'00", looped, Cherry wood show case (NHM), video projection, wooden memorial box, 300 x 600 x 80 cm, image courtesy of the artist and AIKE
The two pieces I completed in London in 2010 subtly connect with a project I conducted last year in Australia. In Australia, I focused on Chinese gold miners who traveled there at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. This group consisted of tens of thousands, most hailing from the Taishan region in Guangdong. Even now, in Victoria, Australia, many of their gravestones can still be seen. Similar to the painters, the identities of these gold miners are nearly impossible to trace. In Australia, I found only an English list with over a thousand names like "Ah Kew" and "Ah Sang," written in a style similar to the names in Reeves’s notes. The installation The Unknown Clouds (2021—2024), which is exhibited at the Rockbund Art Museum, includes over 300 grains of rice engraved with names from this list. Spanning over a decade, the creative work in London and Australia remains interconnected.
Name for Clouds, 2021-2024, "Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", Rockbund Art Museum, 2024, image coutesy of AIKE
Lai: Your artist introduction mentions that each of your creations is interconnected; we cannot view each piece in isolation. This is especially evident in the Bund Museum exhibit "Mount Analogue." Beneath its facade of a natural history museum, “Mont Analogue" actually possesses a strong autobiographical nature for the artist, essentially reorganizing and narrating your previous works. The pieces in the exhibit span over a decade, yet they are subtly connected and intertextual. For the selection of works and the design of the exhibition, what considerations did you have?
Hu: The architecture of the Rockbund Art Museum is very distinctive. It was built nearly a century ago and was the first building in China specifically designed with a museum's functional characteristics in mind. My initial starting point was to treat the entire space of the exhibition as a single piece of work. Overall, I am not discussing a specific museum or a particular place from a specific period, but rather a more abstract entity—rather than the museum itself, it might be better to say the museum system and the way we perceive the world. Therefore, in the layout of the space, I hoped that every area, including stairwells and passageways and other unconventional spaces, would become part of the exhibition. I deliberately utilized some of the transitional spaces of the Bund Museum, such as previously idle areas and the small halls next to elevator exits, which had served different functions. From the moment the audience enters the exhibition, they are immersed in a complete context.
Lai: The exhibition catalogue includes two corresponding images: a rendering of the fabric installation The Hollow-Men (2024) that spans across the atrium from the fourth to the sixth floor, and a historical photograph from the 1930s depicting an exhibition at the Royal Asiatic Society Museum held in the same location. What is the connection between these two? How did you conceive The Hollow-Men, a piece specifically designed for this exhibition space?
Hu: Over the year of preparing for the exhibition, I gradually developed this piece based on my feelings about the exhibition hall. On one hand, the space is almost entirely composed of straight lines with numerous columns, so I aimed to break this visual effect of straight lines through creating visual disturbances, while fully utilizing the lofty hollow area at the center of the hall. The photograph from the 1930s recorded the opening exhibition at the Royal Asiatic Society Museum, right after the building was completed. Large wooden display cabinets were the main method of presenting the exhibits at that time. Reflecting on the size and placement of these wooden cabinets, I planned the positions of the fixing points for the materials in The Hollow-Men. I chose a stretchable material to disrupt the linear nature of the space. This piece ultimately became the main focus of the exhibition hall, and the installation of other works could only start after it was erected. It acts as an active disturbance, breaking the conventional settings of museum viewing mechanisms, making the viewing experience for the audience less smooth and even somewhat passive. Walking on the fourth floor feels a bit like navigating through a jungle, with your view being obstructed. This returns to the question I initially wanted to pose: How does a museum dictate our viewing? In glass cases, we are manufacturing the appearance of the world as we recognize it. What we see is ourselves and the world as we understand it. The concept of "The Hollow-Men“ comes from a novel titled Mount Analogue, which is also the source of the exhibition title. In the world of the novel, there is a mountain known to exist but whose specific location remains unknown. If one day the mountain is truly found and you stand before it, you will discover many hollow people inside the ice mountain. "The Hollow-Men“ is actually yourself, and as you delve into the ice mountain, you can fill it up.
"Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", installation view, 2024, image courtesy of Rockbund Art Museum, photo by Yan Tao“
Lai: Your early works intersect interestingly with the history of the Rockbund Art Museum; specifically with Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885-1954), who once served as the director of the Royal Asiatic Society Museum. Within the building that now houses the Rockbund Art Museum, Sowerby established one of the richest collections of modern Asian animal and plant specimens and cultural relics in a natural history museum. In your 2013 piece Lift with Care, we can see the presence of Sowerby and other Western explorers who surveyed the Shaanxi-Gansu area in the early 20th century. How did you come to learn about these historical figures?
Hu: After returning to Shanghai from London in 2011, I was invited to give a lecture at the Rockbund Art Museum for their event "Art Nightlife." I introduced my work at the Natural History Museum in London and discussed the exploratory research I was planning to conduct in Shanghai. At that time, rather than going through institutions, I independently visited libraries and used various methods to learn about the early presence of natural history museums in Shanghai. In China, the development of modern museums initially began with natural history museums. The earliest natural history museums in Shanghai included a room established by French missionaries at the Xujiahui Church and the Shanghai Museum of the Asiatic Society. I gradually delved deeper into the history of museum development in China: How did they start? Who established them? Where did the early exhibits come from? Who collected them? This involves the activities of various explorers in China in the early days, including many missionaries active in regions like Yunnan and Tibet, as well as figures like Sowerby.
Sowerby was born in Shanxi; his parents were missionaries, and his great-grandfather was a renowned British natural historian. In the early 20th century, Sowerby collaborated with Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956), an American heir and explorer, on a scientific expedition through the Shaanxi and Gansu regions. At that time, there was no official map of inland China. Their journey was planned to locate the source of the Yangtze River and follow it back to Shanghai. The metal wire hanging on the sixth floor of the Bund Museum of Art represents the Yangtze River basin. There are various claims about the source of the Yangtze River, but its endpoint is undoubtedly Shanghai, making this artwork particularly fitting for its display along the Huangpu River on the Bund. Learning about these explorers sparked my interest in Sowerby. He later became an important advocate for the Royal Asiatic Society Museum. He personally collected many botanical and zoological specimens, even hunting some mammals himself for specimen preparation, and he also painted the backdrops in the display cases.
"Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", installation view, Rockbund Art Museum, 2024, image courtesy of Rockbund Museum, photo by Yan Tao
The exhibition also includes a rubbing of the top of a "Nestorian Stele." Unearthed in Xi'an's Forest of Steles, the inscription on the stele recounts the introduction of Nestorianism, a branch of Christianity, into China during the Tang dynasty and its subsequent suppression. The Shaan-Gan region carries layers of complex historical significance. Reflecting its geographical location, the exhibition features many different perspectives, linking real-life people and events. From 2012 to 2013, I frequently engaged in conversations with my grandfather. Gradually, based on topics he was interested in, I pieced together his life story. He was born in 1926. Naturally, his nearly century-long life and pivotal moments are tied to many significant events. At 16, he left his hometown of Cixi in Ningbo to work in old French concession in Shanghai. During that time, he read the book Red Star Over China (1937) and was deeply inspired, developing a strong yearning for Yan'an. For him, Northern Shaanxi represented the Red Holy Land of the Soviet ideal.
Debris, 2024, Chinese transition portable terrarium with color coating, 9 pieces, approximately 8 x 8 x 10 cm each, carbon steel sheets with black oxide coating, 13 pieces,
overall dimensions variable, "Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", installation view, Rockbund Art Museum, 2024, image courtesy of AIKE
Furthermore, during the early stages of China's aerospace industry development, the Shaanxi-Gansu region served as an important observation point, with a satellite observation center located in Xi'an. I have collected numerous news photographs of satellite debris recovered in the Shaanxi-Gansu area. The metal slices on the fifth floor of the exhibit are cut in the shapes of the satellite debris depicted in these photographs. The insect jars in the exhibit stem from the northern Chinese tradition of keeping singing crickets. After I painted them black, they particularly resemble spacecraft, especially the spherical re-entry capsules. Many subtle coincidences and connections form the basis of these works.
The starting point for my works usually involves specific images and characters. In the exhibition, I attempt to disassemble different personal experiences and reassemble them into an abstract object. This object does not literally exist, but it merges numerous real-life experiences and encounters. The exhibit constructs a system that connects various people and things.
Lai: Would you classify your work as research-based creation?
Hu: It is somewhat challenging to encapsulate my work succinctly as "research". Despite the extensive research that underpins my efforts, I do not regard myself as engaging in research in the conventional sense. My endeavors neither align with the methodologies of scientific exploration nor anthropological study; I do not establish a hypothesis and seek to verify it. Rather, my creative process seems to serve as a conduit through which I explore and comprehend diverse individuals and phenomena. Throughout this process, I may find myself captivated by certain elements, which could lead to a deviation from my initial concept. Frequently, there is no straightforward linkage between my initial impetus and the ultimate creations, and at times, such connections are fundamentally unfeasible to establish. My work defies reduction to a single term. I often describe these activities as "journeys", and occasionally as "revisits". This terminology arises because the preliminary gathering of information, whether through reading or listening to narratives, fosters a significant impression within my mind. When I physically visit these places, the experience resonates with the notion of returning to familiar terrain, even though this is not the case in a literal sense. This experience engenders a unique form of connection.
Lai: I am curious about how you assimilate and represent the materials you gather during your "journeys" in the creative process. The range of materials you select for your works is impressively diverse and heterogeneous, making it difficult to pinpoint a single medium as your signature. What considerations do you typically entertain regarding the selection of materials and the presentation of your artworks?
Hu: Materials typically emerge at the final stages of the work process. I may not set out with the intention of using a specific material at the outset. Sometimes, the appearance of these materials is serendipitous and not a result of deliberate choice. I may spend approximately 90% of my time on the initial travels and experiential stages, leaving only about 10% for finalizing the materials and mediums to be used.
Occasionally, the selection of materials is determined by the message an artwork intends to convey. Take, for instance, the art piece Names for Clouds (2021-2024) crafted from rice. I delved into what early Chinese gold miners carried with them. When they embarked on ships leaving their homeland, they brought only two essentials: a bag of rice and a carrying pole. The rice was their sole sustenance onboard. Consequently, the choice of rice as a material emerged naturally. Typically, we do not pay attention to individual rice grains. Similarly, these gold prospectors were perceived collectively by others, with no one inquiring about the identities of each distinct individual within the group. Hence, I conceived the idea of inscribing a name on each grain of rice. At the time, I collaborated with a master of micro-carving, a practitioner of intangible cultural heritage skilled in engraving on human hair, for whom carving on rice was relatively straightforward. After engraving each name, he took a photograph under a microscope, akin to taking a portrait of each grain. These etched rice grains and their corresponding photographs organically became integral components of the artwork, though this integration was not pre-planned.
"Hu Yun: Mount Analogue", installation view, Rockbund Art Museum, 2024
Another illustrative example involves the color cards mounted in colorful frames that are located in the escape stairwell of the art museum. In actuality, these constituted a piece commissioned for the “2021 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art”. At that time, I encountered some so-called “super-plants,” a relatively novel area of research in the field of mining. Scientists have discovered that many plants are capable of extracting heavy metals from the soil. Hence, they have been extensively cultivating these plants in severely damaged tailing areas to cleanse residual metallic substances from the soil. Future human mining might utilize plants, resulting in the possible emergence of banana orchards, palm plantations, or gardens of previously unheard-of plants designed to extract elements like nickel from the soil, which are widely used in mobile phone batteries, car batteries, and other domains. I noted that most of these plants were commonly overlooked weeds, with nobody ever caring to identify them by name. However, due to their unique capabilities, these plants were given a new identity as “super-plants” and are being relocated around the world for mining purposes. I perceived a strong similarity between these plants and the early Chinese miners, as both play crucial yet overlooked roles in the process of globalization.
The metallic elements extracted from super-plants can be used to produce pigments, and many of the pigments we commonly use contain these metals such as manganese, magnesium, copper, and more. Consequently, I collaborated with an Australian pigment maker to transform the metallic elements extracted from 18 different super-plants into watercolor paints. I utilized these paints to create an 8-meter-long watercolor painting, which served as a painting installation for the “2021 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art”. After completing the painting, I found that there was a surplus of pigments remaining. Hence, I decided to paint a color card for each plant using the corresponding pigment, each of the size used for passport photographs in visa applications.
I chose not to specify the exact species and names of these plants in the artwork, partly due to concerns about the unknown possibilities. If in the future, these plants were to be used for large-scale mining, it might trigger a variety of unforeseeable environmental issues. It is unclear whether these plants can be cultivated on a large scale without impacting the local ecosystems. My interest lay in the process of re-recognizing these plants. Thus, in the exhibition at the Bund, I abstractly represented the stories behind these super-plants through a series of small color cards. Materials often naturally emerged later in my work process, which to me represents an ideal and intriguing approach.
Lai: It seems you have been collecting many stories, which may intersect across time and space, yet in the exhibition, you do not necessarily specify the origins of these stories or the specific connections between various events and objects. The exhibition at the Bund Art Museum includes this intangible part where some volunteers find audience members and tell them a story. Each visitor might hear a different story. What are the sources of these stories, and how do you organize and arrange the narration of these stories?
"Lift with Care", installation view, AIKE, 2013, image courtesy of AIKE
Hu: Actually, this is not a new work. It was originally part of a small solo exhibition “Lift with Care" that I held at AIKE Gallery back in 2013. There was a suitcase in the exhibition from which I pulled out several items, including this story. The inspiration for the story emerged spontaneously while I was preparing for the exhibition. The process of the story's formation is somewhat obscure; it may have been derived from books I read, dreams I had, and other assorted inputs. I never wrote it down; it has just always existed in my mind. This time at the Rockbund Art Museum, the piece Lift with Care is being exhibited again, or rather, the suitcase is being reopened, and I felt it necessary to let this story reappear. Each time I retell this story, it might change a bit, as if it's been given a new life. The storytellers that visitors encounter in the exhibition are interpreters recruited for this work, about twenty in total. There is at least one interpreter in the museum each day seeking out audiences to tell this story. These interpreters have considerable autonomy. They wear no special attire and blend in with the audience, choosing their own subjects to tell the story to. I merely conveyed the story to them orally; they are not required to recite my story verbatim but can adapt it based on their understanding. They have the freedom to vary it daily, making it as short or as long as they wish, entirely at their own discretion. This story is like a seed that I have planted, and the interpreters, based on their own choices and interpretations, allow it to grow into different forms.
Lai: After interacting with others who have visited the exhibition and exchanging the stories we each heard, I noticed that with each retelling, the memories of the conversationalists can influence and even overwrite each other. The story might incorporate fragments dreamt up by different individuals, evoking a sense of dejavu, making it hard to distinguish between recollections of reality and the narrator's fabrication. The repetitive narration of the story provides a very unique experience.
Hu: This work reflects, to an extent, the sensations I encountered during its creation—an experience akin to the dejavu you mention. Although the segments within the story may derive from a temporally and spatial as distinct from the present, by revisiting the narrative, we can discern its connections to the current moment and trace the origins of our personal interests. When these stories are articulated, they are likely to arouse the audience's internal emotions and memories, resonating with their life experiences and cognitive structures. This resonance resembles a seepage of reality, akin to reality being contained in a bottle which has developed cracks, allowing the liquid of reality to leak out.
In the exhibition, this permeated reality manifests not as a neatly perfect entity, but as one that leaks, triggering genuine emotions. I find this condition of leakage intriguing, yet as an artist, it is challenging to control. It can only be slowly uncovered under what circumstances these fissures and gaps can be triggered or created. As an artist, my aim is not to craft a perfect scene, but rather to display a world riddled with flaws—it may run parallel to our actual lives, but there are connections, gaps, and backdoors between them. This has always been where my interest lies.
Lai: To what extent do you believe the emergence and proliferation of these cracks or fissures are connected to the embodied experience of individuals moving between different regions?
Hu: It is rather challenging to concretize or quantify this connection as there may not be a direct correlation. Indeed, I contend that it surpasses the temporal and spatial dimensions typically understood by us. One may find oneself in a specific locale or scene, hear a particular thing, witness a certain vista, and feel some inexplicably mysterious connection, but it might not immediately become evident. It is impossible to determine the precise association between these fissures and the spaces we inhabit.
Lai: Does travel have a significant impact on your creativity?
Hu: Yes, it has a profound impact. I need to be in environments that are relevant to the themes I'm interested in because humans need to absorb the world through senses like hearing, smelling, touching, and seeing. We need to perceive sounds, smells, and textures, and see people and places to truly have an experience. I've been quite fortunate in my past job. Due to an opportunity through the Asia-Pacific Triennial, I and my family stayed in Australia for a while. Because of the pandemic travel restrictions, we couldn't leave the country, but it allowed me to move around in Victoria, where my research subjects are located. Victoria was a major site for Chinese gold miners early on, and Melbourne was established because of the gold rush. Even if the trip was not long, being there to experience the environment firsthand was crucial for me.
Lai: What are the characteristics of stories or individuals that attract you or spark your interest and desire to "follow"?
Hu: What initially draws me are the aspects that I cannot fully understand. When I read about someone's experiences, such as Suad or others, I often place myself in their situation and experiences, and think about why they made such choices, what factors might have influenced their decisions—these are my points of departure. I want to find a feeling that narrows the distance between me and that person, which is essentially a search for my own feelings. Like we discussed earlier about the narrative experience, stories can evoke resonance or other imaginations in listeners. It is this resonance that I am seeking. Only when I find—or seem to find—that direction, can I start my work. Because only then can I make the audience feel something about the work. I believe this is a kind of human connection. Therefore, I hope that all choices concerning objects, materials, and subjects incorporate human elements, so that they can convey perceptible emotions. Even if it's just a stone, what attracts me is its relationship with people.
