Wei Xiong

(b.1998, Anhui Xuancheng)

Wei Xiong now lives in Hangzhou and London. Xiong’s work is often based on themes of nature such as animals and plants. Through photography, sculpture and installation, Xiong explores the definitions of habitat, home, migration and boundaries from a de-anthropocentric and caring perspective. In this way, he speaks of the flux of identity in the context of globalisation and mobility. “Where are you from?”, through bringing and answering this question, we often build up an “otherness” in the conversation, separateded by an invisible boundary.
 

To unfold with this question, Xiong’s project focuses on artificially defined invasive species, animals that were initially taken out of their original habitats and into unfamiliar environments due to human activities, desires and consumption. They were then abandoned again because of the threat they posed to the local ecosystem. The exhibition showcases four of Xiong’s projects, including one that explores cats as the invasive species that arrived in New Zealand from the UK. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a large number of European immigrants poured into New Zealand, and cats became the defenders immigrants brought along with to protect their food. These cats thus followed them to New Zealand. Then, because of the following dramatic decline in New Zealand’s bird population, the government designated cats as the “invasive alien species”. Metal-glazed ceramics present the local features of these animals, which are hidden in the spatial structure of the sculpture, conveying the fragility of invasive species under their aggressive and stubborn image.