This year, I finally completed After “Drinking”, which was presented in the Discovery Award section of Jimei × Arles as a multi-channel moving-image installation. The project consists of two interconnected narratives: Drinking and After.
Drinking is adapted from Ling Shuhua’s short story of the same title, originally published in 1925. Shot on color 16mm film at the former westward relocation site of Wuhan University — Longshen Temple and Leshan Confucian Temple — the work ultimately appears in the exhibition as seventeen backlit photographic lightboxes alongside a “film-within-a-film” moving image component.
After comprises a three-channel 4K color video installation and a triptych of still photographs. It follows a married couple attending a performance of Drinking, unfolding into a layered narrative structure. Presented in a dual-screen format, the work offers two divergent narrative trajectories.

After “Drinking”, Cao Mengqin

Coincidentally, I was born on Lunar New Year’s Eve, so the New Year is also my birthday. I usually stay in Shanghai during the holiday.
In most years, we either gather at the old family house on Huaihai Fang for the reunion dinner, or relatives and friends come to my studio to celebrate together. Aside from the New Year’s Eve dinner, my daily life remains much the same — work continues to take priority.

The elderly women of Tunpu, their faces softly obscured, bear the gravity of history; a wash of blue evokes something remote, almost unknowable.

Switching tracks, shifting identities — a more instinctive, more liberated mode of expression.A canvas of moth orchids, suspended between completion and incompletion, their wildness still intact.

Returning to Tunpu during the Spring Festival to watch a ground opera performance. In a ritual society that is gradually fading, one senses that the moment the gongs and drums resound, the New Year in the mountains finds its soul.
Behind the masks, eyes and brows conceal stories that feel eternal. There is no need to fully grasp the formal codes or conventions — simply standing amid the smoke and festive air, watching the lively scene unfold, the heart, too, settles into stillness.

A Brief History of Time is currently on view at the Chengdu Biennale. The work borrows its title from Stephen Hawking’s book and draws on several fundamental concepts of time: that time has a discernible direction, that it moves along an arrow — a trajectory we understand as the passage from past to future.

A Brief History of Time, Luo Min

This is a small painting that I once brought to this stage, then left unfinished for some time.

A year later, I returned to it and continued painting, and it has become what it is now. I’m not sure whether I will keep working on it. As long as it remains on the studio wall, it always carries the possibility of being revised again and again.

The first painting stems from a memory of a particular scene from more than a decade ago, though I never began working on it at the time. Last year, after completing the Green Hole and Archaeology series, that memory resurfaced.
As the work gradually unfolded, it accompanied me through most of 2025. Time flows, and so does consciousness. Painting, perhaps, is simply an attempt to grasp something certain within that flow. Amid the tension between flux and fixity, there are moments of elation and moments of falling into a low ebb. Perhaps because the elephant is regarded as an auspicious symbol, what I experienced more intensely in the making of this work was a sense of boundless imagination and unexpected delight.

Elephant, Rainbow (Detail), Luo Quanmu, 2025, Oil on canvas

Washing the Elephant, Luo Quanmu, 2025, Mixed media, 140 × 80 cm

After this prolonged period of work, I felt the urge to approach this memory in a more immediate, almost abrupt way. The image itself draws from an everyday scene at the zoo — it somewhat resembles the parable of the blind men touching an elephant.
The limits of understanding are often not a matter of insufficient effort, but of our inability to occupy every position at once. Yet even if all the fragments were assembled, would we truly arrive at “the elephant”? It seems more like a position we are perpetually approaching, yet can never fully possess.

Recently, my solo exhibition is on view at the Shenzhen Bay Art Center. Among the works presented is a site-specific installation created especially for the space: All Forms Bow to Gravity, Even Imagination Is Absent.
The work consists of a nearly 21-meter-long symbiotic spinal structure composed of 18 different species — including humans and other animals that have not yet become extinct. Suspended in midair, the hybrid spine hangs downward, governed by an invisible force of gravity…

All Forms Bow to Gravity, Even Imagination is Absent, Shi Yong

Oblivion Lasts Longer than Memory——One Hundred Years of Solitude, Shi Yong

When I received Oui Art’s invitation to contribute to the New Year special, one of my most recent time-based works — Forgetting Outlasts Memory — One Hundred Years of Solitude — was nearly complete. What remained was the final stage: editing the video documentation and assembling the last “evidence” from the performance.

I no longer feel much about the New Year. The sense of joy that once accompanied it disappeared after fireworks were banned in Shanghai. Something of that atmosphere — the noise, the smoke, the collective anticipation — quietly faded away.
Yet before every New Year, I still find myself doing one thing: reorganizing the windowsill in my bedroom, which is perpetually stacked with books. This year was no exception. What interests me is that each time I tidy up, small surprises emerge.
This time, buried among the piles of books, I rediscovered a newspaper I had ordered online years ago — a copy of People’s Daily published on the exact same year, month, and day as my birth.

I recently completed Studies in Ink (a group of nine works). Together with another group of six works titled Ink Gives Rise to Six Colors, they are currently on view in conjunction with the “Ink Resonance of Jiangnan” exhibition of ancient ink at the East Branch of the Shanghai Museum.
Taking ancient ink as both material and point of departure, these works further explore the chromatic and technical possibilities of ink painting. They attempt to re-examine the expressive range of ink — not merely as monochrome substance, but as a medium capable of generating subtle variations of color through its own internal logic.

Studies in Ink, Wang Shuzhong, 2025, Materials: ancient ink, xuan paper

This work is still unfinished and has not yet been given a formal title. It arises from my ongoing re-examination of the chromatic possibilities in Chinese ink painting, and represents a renewed engagement with the practice of brushwork.

In this work, I layered two different white materials and used pure silver powder to depict the “scars.” Under varying light, the surface reveals subtle shades and textures — black, antique silver, and bright silver. The restrained, quiet luster of the silver resonates with the warm, soft whiteness of the foal, creating a dialogue between material, light, and form.

White Horse,Yang Yang, 2026,Materials: glazed ceramic, silver inlay, carbon steel

I want to explore a sculptural language of my own from traditional materials and develop my personal interpretation of them. I hope to shape a lifelike presence through an alternative medium.

During the Spring Festival, I usually take a short trip outdoors, and spend New Year’s Eve and the holiday with my family.

A peeled raw egg stands upright on a block of salt. The faintly visible white strands within the egg reveal its freshness, while the form of the salt block resembles the contours of a mountain range, extending beyond the image into the untouchable.
The delicate fragility of the egg contrasts with the sharpness of the salt, creating a tension between the two. Behind this tension lies a metaphor for individual life force: a persistent resilience and confrontation in the face of cold, rigid constraints.

Breath,Yin Hang, 2026

Photographed on December 7, 2025, at 22:49.

This is a photograph of my hand while driving. To capture the sense of explosive energy in the veins at high speed, I deliberately clenched my wrist to create a draft image.
Influenced by Actor-Network Theory, I have long believed that objects are never just background—they act as agents of power, transforming invisible rules into tangible resistance. I aim to depict how the body is reshaped, even compressed and deformed, in the act of manipulating objects.

Every New Year’s Day evening, I gather with friends I grew up with to welcome the arrival of the new year. During the gathering, we set no limits on drinking. Fueled by alcohol, we pour out the accumulated bitterness and disappointments of past years — along with tears and vomit — in a literal act of release, confronting a kind of mental shutdown. In the end, we collectively experience a blackout, which serves as a reset for the new year.
What began as a spontaneous, ad hoc gathering gradually became a habit, and over time evolved into a ritual — one we now look forward to participating in each year.

Photographed on January 31, 2025.

Memory Island is a newly completed installation from 2026. Memory defines who we are — those vague, overlapping fragments that settle deep within us ultimately converge into a private landscape of remembrance.
I abandoned traditional forging and casting techniques, instead perforating rigid metal with countless tiny holes to make it light and translucent. By hand-bending, connecting, and stretching, the metal grows into a layered, semi-transparent, and resilient three-dimensional island.
The layering reflects the accumulation and reconstruction of memory; the semi-transparency evokes the haziness and inaccessibility of recollection; and the elasticity represents how memory can be continually awakened and reshaped upon reflection. Within each of us resides such a memory island.

Memory Island,Yuan Xiaotian, 2026

Since beginning the Memory Landscape series, I have been thinking about how to draw the viewer into the work itself. When one steps into the semi-transparent space, looking outward through the hazy metal, the gaze both penetrates the surroundings and becomes part of the memory landscape — just as each of us exists within our own and others’ landscapes of memory.
The process of creating an installation is long and uncertain. From the moment an idea emerges to its final realization, there is no prescribed path — one must discover the method of bringing the idea to life. Yet it is precisely this process that makes the resulting work full of infinite possibilities.

The Spring Festival marks the boundary between the end of winter and the arrival of spring. For me, the most indispensable ritual at the turn of the year is placing New Year flowers. The blooms speak no words, yet they carry the breath of spring and vibrant life — to me, this is the most fitting way to welcome the new year.