35. ZHONGHUA SUI - A SPACE BETWEEN EFFORT AND DETACHMENT.
The artist contemplates his creative process.
Zhonghua Sui, Image courtersy of the artist.
The portrait of the character, dressed in a chinoiserie bomber jacket, blankly looking directly at the viewer, in the middle of Regents Street with a rail of copied garments is such a pivotal image within your body of work - the implied symbolism of ethical tokens provokes the image as high art to me - can you discuss what the image means to you?
When I saw this enthusiastic guy approach and celebrate, taking on the role of a fashion model interacting with the installation, we together created a miniature fashion tableau. To me, it felt like a celebration, with the performance of a fashion model strutting out of the bar, dressed in fancy attire for a glamorous date, and the emotional tension when facing the camera: the mix of nervousness and relaxation, the alienation of relationships between people had all manifested in this miniature spectacle.
Zhonghua Sui, Image courtersy of the artist.
Zhonghua Sui, Image courtersy of the artist.
Thinking back to your work where you repositioned garments into stores... I found that to be unbelievable and yet when you presented the work it made total sense... can you explain the circumstances around making that body of work?
This is my process for "appropriation" in the fashion industry, using degradation and transformation as means. I purchased some typical essential clothing items from various commercial locations in London and brought them back to the studio. I then meticulously replicated these garments following their patterns, using recycled industrial sails, while leaving oil stains representing labor participation during the production process to reveal the true face and cost of a piece of clothing.
Finally, I returned these degraded substitutes to the original packaging and the store of the original brand, making the fashion consumers in the store my first audience. When they returned to the shelves and became part of the neatly arranged products for sale, they easily caught the customers' attention due to their uniqueness. The only regret is that I politely refuse people who love them because they were "not for sale."
I remember the moment when you received an excellent grade from The Royal College of Art for your degree work and you said that you felt underserving of the mark - your values are very connected to the structure and interpretation of public systems, why is this?
I believe that my practices are a gift from society, and I just discover and document them. I enjoyed the discussions we had at RCA about the path "Humanwear," where a good society can define excellence, but being defined as excellent as a human still makes me feel fearful and humble. On the other hand, the field I care about has never burdened me with the weight of elitism. When I see so many people working so hard without achieving results or no conditions to make an effort, makes me approach excellence with a sense of detachment.
There is a performative aspect to your practice that is really fascinating, the act of making, constructing, and the act of observing, why does human behavior interest you?
As a society practice with uncertainty, my work became the subject of excessive praise from many passersby as I moved professionally along London's Regent Street, even though all of these clothes came from the fast fashion industry.
What's interesting is that the pure white installations representing labor participation, transported to the consumer center, became the focal point of the spectacle and interaction. They were enveloped by the sparkling streets and crowds, but in photos, they often appeared ignored, seemingly less important, with people turning their backs to them.
I wanted traces of audience participation in shows. I once had the audience exchange coats with performers, inviting the audience to play the role of assembly line workers folding origami clothes. Each participant left fold marks and fingerprint traces that were quite uniquely elegant.
This meant that everyone's practice had a compelling story, one that we had never seen or cared about, much like those clean and tidy ready made clothes. I was captivated by grand narratives and the collective unconscious from a young age, but caring about and understanding real individual people as my act of resistance is particularly important to me.
Responding to instinct is something that I really respect within your practice and in conversations which we return to... and yet I wonder, do you need to somehow separate yourself from your art practice and your work as a human, because to be an artist who so directly questions - must be personally very provocative.
If my work still remains as a gentle opponent in everyday life, then I aspire to engage with real societal processes, not just the act of creation itself and the pleasurable emotional experiences. Society being possible, through establishing dependencies and recognizing each other's rights. What I hope to do is not to expose consumerism as a demon but to acknowledge the significance of cooperation in the process of recognizing rights and interests. Long-term certainty and optimization are my goals, rather than confrontational moments. Therefore, artistic practice and the artist themselves can coexist without conflict. I prefer artists to have a business acumen over what businessmen do in the name of fashion.
Joseph Beuys' thoughts that all humans are artists is conceptually so timely, what do you feel about this idea and do you believe it to be true?
I am interested in appeals that emphasize the class of people. I would think it as the power of interpretation in art returning to the hands of individual, where information flattening makes individual expression a form of artistic language. However, what concerns me is that when the boundaries between art and life are blurred, a weary resistance may arise to avoid the ostentation of the fame and the violence of political life. In fact, art is an eternal presence in human social life, and the eternal violence on the path of truth, as well as social events, inevitably need to be experienced.
Zhonghua Sui, Image courtersy of the artist.