Master of Fine Art School of Fine Art
Jiachen Liu
Liu Jiachen, an artist from Northeast China, based in Shenyang and Glasgow. In her works and exhibitions, she constantly tries and predicts what kind of temporary connections she will make with different environments. She builds a bridge between the alienation of the self and the anthropomorphisation of objects, exploring the tripartite interaction between people, objects and spaces.
Take a Break
Sculptural installation, wax, soap, glass wax, plaster, iron powder, concrete, iron plate
Variable dimensions
2024
Upon arriving in Glasgow, during the long rainy days, I felt myself melting into cracks in the ground, flowing in different directions. I kept noticing the sandbags under the signs.
They are rarely noticed, silently placed all over the city. They grow moss in the damp rain, bend in the wind and spit out the dirt inside. They are pressed into different shapes by the iron frames, and the tension and space between them reminds me of a crowd.
One of the reasons I anthropomorphised the sandbags was that I did not detach myself from the organism’s sense-making and subjectivity, and applied the coding of society with its various powers to the bodies of these objects. I viewed objects such as sandbags and signage as a hierarchical body with a centred, head to other organs. If it is possible to move away from this kind of thinking, perhaps anthropomorphism is also a form of anthropomorphism. I explored how to turn objects into “organ-less objects”, which is reflected in my practice’s work: the sandbags’ unrestricted form that transforms between different materials and forms after breaking away from the conventional rules.
Have You Ever Noticed Those Sandbags?
Performance video
11:00 mins
2023
During long rainy days in Glasgow, I felt myself melting into the cracks in the ground and flowing in different directions. Contact and communication with pigeon feathers and leaves, cigarette butts and chewing gum paper. I kept noticing the sandbags under the signage, they are rarely noticed and silently placed all over the city. They grow moss in the damp rain, crook in the wind and spit out the dirt inside. At some point, I become them too, choking on the iron frame, with bruises appearing on my skin.
I am constantly, actively or passively, feeling this connection, and at the same time, I am thinking about the reasons why my feelings arise. I use latex to bond with my ” new friends” that I meet on the street, attaching them to my body like a second skin. Latex is also one of the main materials used to make condoms, suggesting my scepticism about the blurring of boundaries and feelings of division.
Project Links
Let the River Flow
Performance video
14:11 mins
2024
Glasgow’s water links my works. I am concerned about the rainwater trapped between notices posted on lampposts and twisted clear tape. In April 2024, I taped myself to a tree by the Clyde River. In the rain, I sent the rainwater trapped between my body and the tape back into the Clyde River, so that it could be free and continue to flow.
What are my expectations contained in my designed process of tying myself to the tree and waiting for the rain to fall; what social values are contained in my self-conscious belief that the water is trapped; and what behaviours are contained in the process of sending the rain back to the river during my performance.
Perhaps it was the Clyde River in Glasgow that guided me, or perhaps it was also the echo between water and water, between flow and stillness.
Project Links
Second Layer
Sculptural installation with latex, rubbish from the Glue Factory & GSA studio
Variable dimensions
2024
In preparation for the Glasgow School of Art Degree Show in the Glue Factory, I continued my exploration of the triple interaction of artist, material/object and space. I applied latex to a number of acrylic panels of varying sizes and placed them in two spaces, the studio and the glue factory. Over time they solidify and become translucent, while they collect some of the rubbish, objects and dust present in these two spaces. They bind these things.
I tied these latex “skins” to the fence. The twine and wire stretched them to their limits, or a virtual touch that existed on my skin. At the same time, I observe how this practice relates the two spaces, and how it creates a change of atmosphere in the architectural space of the Glue Factory.