Yiran Zhang

Country where you live:

United States

City where you live:

New York

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/yiran316

Statement :

My works are rooted in the inconspicuous moments of experiencing repetitive everyday actions and social environments. I materialize and visualize my perception of reality through performance, action, installation, writing, and painting. By recontextualizing banal objects, behavior, scenario without removing them from their original context in daily life altogether, I create illusion and juxtaposition to explore the possibilities that remain in the already constructed systems.

Drink Alone

2020 Chair, wineglass, wine cork Dimensions Variable This work is an installation with found objects inside my home. During the quarantine, I searched my apartment in Beijing for these chairs that were belonged to my departed family members. When I collected these chairs and saw the signs of wear and tear on the chairs, it gave me an illusion that the owners of the chairs were sitting together to keep me company. I stacked the chairs from floor to ceiling by carefully feeling the balancing point of each chair, which was a process corresponding to my appeal during the pandemic, to find a temporary sense of stability.

“LOVE” -Repairing the Tofu

2021 Performance 1 hour ~ 1.5 hour In this performance, I dropped a piece of tofu on the ground and then tried to sew the tofu together. This work depicts my feeling about the fragility of relationships, and about how to put all the love and patient in doing something that is doomed to fail. The process of repairing the tofu takes about 1-1.5 hour. I did this performance twice, at the beginning and the end of 2021.

Rot

2019 Acrylics, pastel, flypaper, dead flies

A PAIR OF FLIES ARE MATING NEXT TO MY BUTTER

2019 Video 2min55sec Link to the Video: https://youtu.be/JJMF0l4fOSs In the 24 split screens, I created the situation of trying to follow the movement of the flies in my apartment while holding the flyswatter in my hand. The durations of the twelve videos are different to let the audience stare at the screens as concentrated as they are spotting the flies. As the audience are only able to look at my distorted faces, whether the flies exist is ambiguous. By transforming this small everyday action, I intend to lead the audience to involve with this confrontation with invisible enemies.

Delivery

2019 Video, 00:04:50 Link to the video: https://youtu.be/Ohop3MCKxMQ Print*39, 8.5*11 In. (Framed) In this performance, I packed bones, cartridges, and clock hands into different product boxes, and then delivered these boxes to market’s shelves. I intend to draw attention to the labor involved in the production processes that easily being overlooked under the all-pervasive influences of consumerism.