Jingwei Bu is an artist of Chinese heritage, who spent her childhood in rural Mongolia exploring the natural world, and is now based in Tarntanya/Adelaide. Jingwei’s work ranges from visual to performance art and the moving image. Much of her creative practice explores the passage of time and treats time as a ‘collaborator,’ enacting ritual and repetition. Whilst being heavily influenced by Buddhist Chan Philosophy and Tai Chi practice, the natural world is an ever present theme throughout Jingwei’s body of work.
In this Interview, Jingwei discusses her love for nature, experience working as a journalist in China and her most treasured project – ‘Pouring tea until it is all evaporated’ – performed at Nexus Art Studio, the piece is participatory, ritualistic and grounded in connection.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
I am a visual artist based in Tarntanya/Adelaide with Chinese heritage. My practice is to explore the notion of time in different ways. Time as a collaborator through duration based artwork, as the subject of my work enacting ritual and repetition and through time as media itself. I tend to utilise a range of modalities, from moving image to performance influenced by Buddhist Chan philosophy. I keep an evolving, participatory and experimental and open gesture towards the material, the process of making and the exhibition space.
How did you start your creative practice and why?
I learnt Chinese charcoal powder portrait painting in China as a teenager. It is a disappearing traditional portrait technique for hyper representative portraiture. I found it limiting after making some portraits for my relatives and friends. But I didn’t have other opportunities to further my art pursuits until I joined a German artist’s atelier a decade later. During this non-creative life time, I had worked as a journalist and editor for a newspaper, focusing on interior design. I hosted a weekly column about artists’ homes and studio spaces, I had the chance to closely connect with some of the best artists in China and a lot of interesting art makers, actors and collectors.
Where did you grow up and how has it influenced your practice?
I spent my early six years in Inner Mongolia where my parents were sent to work as middle school teachers in the middle of the dessert for the children who live in the surrounding villages. There were no toys for us to play, so I would just play with anything I could see and find around us and in the natural world. I guess that influences my lifestyle. I love to live close to mountains and water. I spend a lot of time wandering in nature just like my childhood. It’s very essential for my survival. I always believe and feel the plants have emotions and feelings too.
Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been your most treasured creation so far?
The public engaged art performance ‘Pouring Tea Until It Is All Evaporated’ is the most heartfelt project I have made. The repetition of tea hosting in Nexus Art studio and the repetition of tea brewing and pouring within the three months residency are the highlights in my life. I get the chance to learn and share so many things that are tea culture related and art related. The communication over a cup of tea is totally imprinted in my memory so much so that it that always releases warmth and a smile. The durational performance on the opening event is a huge challenge to me. I sat on the floor for 90 minutes without any support to keep a simple action of tea pouring from left to right and back and forth. Normally, 30 minutes is the limits of the pressure on the back. I pushed the limit and was able to jump up when I heard the applause from the audiences. I am so grateful for their company. They are amazing friends and artists. The following performance of 3 hours including 3 pauses is experimenting on the response to the space and installation that leads to multiple sessions of collective performances with other artists and the public together. The sound of pouring becomes the orchestra and the attention is drawn to that simple action. I enjoyed the conversation before and after the performance too. As I said: let’s do this silly thing together. It’s about the time we spend together in a very different way than usual hanging out.
Tell us about your current project?
I have a couple of projects on going in my studio at the moment. I like to work on multiple projects as my works are my responses to what’s happening around me and use the collected material from daily life, such like tea leaves and tea water. The works are the artefact of my performance of rituals in my daily life, repetitions of rituals, results of being silly as approaching towards wisdom. No expectation of achieving as achievements. Not producing as productions. They are all about my learning to understand the truth of life and the practice of the awareness of time passing. These practices become rituals, in a daily, monthly, yearly format. They are all about the passages of time.
I am still working on the tea project, including engaging with the society with tea ceremonies and making marks as journal on tea water stained timber boards. It’s an on-going body of work.
Who or what was inspires your practice?
My learning of Buddhism and practice of Tai chi has inspired the way I see the world and the understanding of life. Nature is my muse since I was born in a remote area and immersed in the landscape every day. I deeply feel the connection with the natural world. Wandering in nature is very essential for my wellbeing and keeping the creative mode. I write a lot in my mind while walking, whether in the city streets or in the park, mostly poems. I can’t help to stop my mind. I used to be frustrated about this since I was little. My mind tends to fly away while listening others talk too. I felt bad not concentrating to listen. But I think maybe just because their words inspired me. Artists like Hossein Valamanesh, William Kenbridge, Louise Bourgeois, On Kawara, Bill viola are among many other artists who have shaped my mind towards art making.
What do you hope audiences take from your work?
My experiments with making works about time aims to share my years-long effort to meditate upon the daily life. Whether it is the accumulated marks making or the repetition of simple action as performance, all are trying to address my research about time and questioning about the value of life. I am very grateful the audiences who have given me invaluable feedback and the connection between us with this shared message delivered through the exhibition works as well as the process of making and engaging. I do now feel like I have always considered the audience and exhibition space as part of my work.
What future projects are you looking forward to?
I am further exploring my tea project: Pouring Tea Until It Is All Evaporated. The tea ceremonies I hosted at Nexus Art Gallery during SALA Festival is still happening and it’s now at my studio. The result will be shown in August 2023 in Sydney at Woollarah Gallery. I am also trying to test out one more moving image works that are based on traditional Chinese fables after I made a moving image for Adelaide Film Festival this year. It is resonant with a well-known Chinese fable ‘A foolish Man Moved a Mountain’. They form the way of living my life and how I make art.
Whose work are you digging at the moment?
I tend to read and study quite broadly at the same time, as I found this is a way of setting my mind in a flowing mode among the messages. Then I won’t be taken easily by the artists’ practices or the content of the books. They are company and friends embedded in the daily artist’s life, as flavour. Important but not dominant. I am reading books by Bill Viola and Anne Marsh as well as The Classic of Tea（茶经/Cha Jing）by Lu Yv at the moment.
Where can we find and follow you online?
I have a website that is www.jingweibu.com which shows my most recent projects and my Instagram @jingwei_bu has relatively comprehensive content about what I have been exploring that shows some hints of my art journey.