Meet Yuqing Lai | Multi-disciplinary Artist

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

Hi Yuqing, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
Art has always been my passion. I have curiosity in humanity, subconscious, memory, perception, languages and symbols. Practicing art enable me to explore and reflect on those themes.

I love working with material and tools. I enter a flow when doing something creative. And that is very important and therapeutic to me.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a mixed media artist working on large scale installation alongside experimental films, painting, ceramic, sculptures, and photography. I started as a photographer, focusing on collage and conceptual photography. Later, I explored hand-bound books because I wanted to give my photography a tangible body and involve multi-sensory experience. Since then, I have expanded my experiments and started to work with various materials and site-specific installations.

Mixed-media installation allows me to create a scene or a landscape for the viewer to enter a constructed reality. Sometimes, I deconstruct cinema into sounds, images, props, lighting, narrative and set-up. The audience has the opportunity to experience these components of cinema separately and reconstruct a personal narrative. Sometimes, I use various material to invite the audience to a perceptive experience that involves multi-sensory. Sometimes, I conduct a ceremony ritual or meditative experience through performance and experimental film.

Through my work, I want to combine poetry and dreams, experimental film, performance and everyday objects to challenge and blur the boundaries between reality and illusion. My goal is to create a sensory space for the audience to enter and experience art beyond visuals. I aim to incorporate found objects and natural materials, inviting viewers to contemplate the relationship between humanity and the natural world.

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 will take them around checking out Murals. One of my favourite French directors, Agnes Varda made a documentary called Mur Murs in 1981 about the striking murals that decorate the city.

Definitely a sunset by the beach. Sunset is the most magical and beautiful moment in a day. And a multi-sensory sound bath experience in Malibu.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are many people and interesting experiences encourage and support me in chasing my art dream.

I would like to mention Arbre Art Centre. Three of us first started it as a podcast sharing books, arts, opinions on art related events. Then it becomes a cafe, gallery, and art institution. Times working there as part time artist and gallery assistant give me the opportunity to explain art to people from wider backgrounds. Many of the audience are not in art industry. Their feedbacks make me feel like what we are doing is meaningful. Weaving art into daily life, bringing art into the residential area, providing a shelter for the wandering souls in an urban setting.

It is also a turning point for me to explore what is the functions and boundary of gallery and the possibilities of art in a social context .

Website: https://www.lavitaching.com

Instagram: @eggsymade

Image Credits
I took them myself.