Meet Daiqing Zhang | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daiqing Zhang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daiqing, why did you pursue a creative career?
I am not a person who has a lot of interests. Making things is the only thing that I found myself persistently being passionate about since young.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
For the last year and a half I have been seeking seemingly impossible phenomena within the forgotten recesses of the everyday. My work often takes form in experience-charged installations underscored by phenomenology. They are informed by the moments of subtle phenomena I observed or experienced in the everyday life. In my work, I create situations where viewers are invited to encounter and activate phenomena in both physical and mental space.

Inconspicuous phenomena built the world, such as air, dust, and light, guaranteeing our inhabitation on earth, vouching for our traces for being alive, grounding our perceptions and awareness. They are transcendental and infinite. I feel the urgency to bring these significant ordinaries to the foreground. In the beam of sunshine cast through floating particles, I saw stars dancing slowly in the air. In moments as such a world beyond its ordinary starts to uncover. There, I realized that we, too, are parts of the imponderable universe. My goal is to attune my viewers’ attention to the inconspicuous, causing them to shift the understanding of their perceptions from the ordinary to the extraordinary. In my work, one “sees” the cosmos within a speck of dust; constellations are formed with a clear glass orb; the surroundings compressed within a lens of air…

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

I am probably not the right person to answer this question, as my partner and I are more the neighborhood-strolling kind. But I do enjoy going to The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It is a magical place where you lose the sense of time and surrender to the “reality” composed of unlikely mysteries.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
As someone who does glass, the collaborative nature of this material led me to a lot of meaningful friendships. Works that I am the most proud of are all made with my friends’ assistance.

Recently finished grad school, RISD Glass holds a special place in my heart. Within and through the program, I‘ve met many important people in my life, such as Rachel Berwick, Jocelyne Prince and Matthew Day Perez. They inspired and influenced me with their enthusiasm, curiosity, determination, and generosity.

Also, I feel grateful to have my partner, who is one of my sincerest critics, my support system, and my best friend. And of course, last but not least, my parents, who have been supporting me despite our differences. Being an artist’s parents is not easy, but they’ve done more than I can ask for.

Website: https://www.zhangdaiqing.com/

Instagram: zhang_daiqing

Image Credits
Weihan Yang and Kai Wasikowski