Qiuyu

At the start of this year, I began exploring sound sculpture through ceramics, choosing the Inca water vessel as my entry point. Making one requires mastering the craft of the whistle. While practicing this technique, I found myself reflecting on how, over the past year, whistles have been used and distributed by ICE community watch groups as tools to warn immigrants of potential threats and deter abductions. This led me to consider a more purposeful direction for this exercise: creating a chest of whistles as both an artwork and a form of support. I have produced a full chest of hand-made ceramic whistles and am offering them as a fundraiser. Each is priced on a sliding scale of $20–$50. All proceeds will go directly to families impacted by ICE raids and individuals held in detention, identified through mutual aid platforms. I’ll post updates and more details on where funds go. DM if you are interested! Photo by @y_shen_

Jiangjiang playing in the snow

“Floating Body” 2025 Ceramic, wood, glass  49.5”x 27” x 16.5”  Floating Body examines the precarious condition of non-citizens. Centering on a suspended moment, the work captures the instant when a body is snatched out of everyday life, caught between domestic shelter and public vulnerability. Under the Fourth Amendment, the home is imagined as a legal refuge, a space shielded from unwarranted search and seizure. Many arrests occur just beyond the threshold, where legal safeguards thin out and violence becomes permissible, or when the line becomes compromised. The outer ceramic frame is modeled after steel window guards commonly found throughout Brooklyn. These guards signify safety, yet here they are rendered in clay and deformed during firing, presented in the state of being forced open. What should function as a safety net instead reveals its own instability, pointing to a system that promises protection but fails to deliver due process, repair harm, or ensure accountability. Set within this fractured frame, a wooden box opens into an interior scene: a ceramic figure caught mid-motion, neither fully inside nor outside. The body clings, slips, and floats at once, existing in a state of uncertainty. Currently on view at @99canal.nyc as part of the exhibition “Under Light of Moon and Sun”, curated by Karen Wang and Cici Wu Special Thanks to @y_shen_ Documentation: @farfar_studio_

“A Square is a Flag, is a Perimeter, is a Mourning Place” Ceramic, wax thread, flag pole 54”x 29” Ceramic fragments, evocative of rubble, are tied into the form of a flag. The composition recalls the aerial view of a mass assembly: a sea of bodies occupying the streets in collective defiance. Suspended yet partially draped onto the ground, the flag becomes a gesture of mourning for those made to bear the consequences of ruin. Unlike the flags we see every day—light and dignified, floating high above our heads—this flag is perpetually weighed down by the heaviness of rubble, echoing the lived realities of marginalized communities and those rendered non-citizen. And I want to question why they are placed in such circumstances. Special thanks to @chenxishh and @y_shen_ for helping me! Photo credit: @farfar_studio_

“An Idyll, A Facade” 70”x 32” x 57” ceramic, cinder block, resin, plastic figures, hair, silicone, steel chain, 2024 “An Idyll, A Facade” is a response to the rising wave of nationalism in China, exacerbated by the country’s patriotic education, pervasive censorship, and arbitrary punitive mechanisms. I was disturbed by the public’s readiness to align with authority at the expense of marginalized groups and was startled by the weaponization of nationalism. At the same time, I see a similar pattern emerging globally. These observations led me to question why grand narratives that justify violence are so readily embraced. What makes the “us versus them”dichotomy such powerful rhetoric? What is the appeal of nationalism? Guided by these questions, this work explores the duality of nationalism—how it constructs an alluring image of an imagined community while also insidiously numbing the senses and constricting thoughts. The installation, suggestive of a shrine, is divided into two parts: an artificial paradise consisting of three ceramic sculptures and a cinder block platform. Photo credit: @y_shen_

2023 photo dump

I will be participating in the @officialbushwickopenstudios this weekend with @y_shen_ and @jeong.h.something . Our opening hours are 12pm-7pm. Come visit us! Address: 302 Morgan Ave.

On the Beach Lithograph, 2019