Shuyao Cui
I usually create garments through reduced-waste cutting methods and the use of draped fabrics. My work often takes the form of one or two minimally cut rectangular pieces of fabric that are transformed through twisting, gathering, and other manipulative techniques.
My practice focuses on the stillness of internal emotional conflict and reflections on the shifting states of different roles. Through clothing, I aim to construct a condition in which softness and rigidity, stillness and movement.
The Unquiet Sutra
When we stand in the fissure between faith and desire, what can we see?
This collection centres on the highly symbolic theatrical character “Fa Hai,” using him as a representative of this condition to observe how an individual seeks balance amid tension and self-justification under two entirely different codes of conduct.
In Green Snake, as a Buddhist and villain, Fa Hai’s belief in asceticism, emotional restraint, and rule-based discipline stands in opposition to innate human instinct. The Four Dharma Seals: Impermanence, Suffering, Non-self, and Nirvana require the abandonment of the concept of “self” to reach absolute calm. Yet human emotion and desire continually wash against this hardened stone like a tide, creating a persistent pull.
This opposition is translated into a stable and fluid shape within the collection. Geometric silhouettes referencing temple bells and lotus forms create a visual barrier, a protective structure around the body. Beneath them, light gathers and soft fabrics flow and sway with movement, suggesting instinctual emotion that cannot be fully suppressed, placing the body in a middle state.
Materially, the series centres on power mesh, whose lightness and translucency connect the collection. Linen, cotton, silk, chiffon, and wood introduce contrasts in weight and texture. Brown, beige, and skin tones create a restrained, natural tension, forming an abstract image derived from the original character.
This series is not a reproduction of the character, but a reconstruction of a state between faith and desire, rule and instinct. Seeking a body that exists in constant oscillation.
