[Yuge Zhou](http://yugezhou.com/) is the Beijing-born, Chicago-based artist collaging video footage into cubist-like installations. Studying under Chinese contemporary painter Kaixi Cui 崔开玺, Zhou eventually found her passion in video art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Here, her exploration of isolation vs. connection began, studying a diverse range of natural landscapes and bustling urban environments. Today, Yuge reflects on her work and shares a new video series, **_when the East of the day meets the West of the night_**.
**_How has the rapid transformation of Beijing’s urban landscape impacted you? How did you decide to move to America?_**
Growing up in Beijing where some of the most modern structures built around the 2008 Olympic Games, I became more aware of impact of architecture on a place, as well as the acceleration of the pacing of the urban environment. These transformations got me to see the transience of urban spaces – how familiar places can be suddenly made unfamiliar.
I moved to the U.S. originally to go to school to get a technology degree. I was also interested in experiencing a very different culture to counterweight my Chinese heritage, so as to see what kind of impact that would have on my lifestyle, my thoughts and ultimately, my work. The friction and discomfort from living in a foreign land brought me new ideas of expression.
**_When did you become interested in documenting the spaces around you?_**
The spaces in the U.S. are radically different than those in China in its functionality, sensibility, and how people occupy those spaces. With these differences in mind, I began filming particular places that highlighted these aspects. Unfamiliarity heightens my sensitivities to places that the local population may conceive as normal. I am motivated to explore and transform myself into a hybrid of two cultures experiencing an underlying sense of loss and longing in these places. There are obvious cultural differences, but there are also universally shared emotions: relaxation, anxiety, joy, hope, indifference, loneliness—all of which are what I hope to evoke through the lens of my work.
**_Filming public spaces leaves a lot to chance, in terms of the material you are able to acquire. How do you account for this unpredictability?_**
Every day, we encounter many incomplete fragmented narratives. In the public spaces of a metropolis, this is recognized as an integral aspect. And that, I believe, is why cities attract both new inhabitants and tourists. Everyone in the spaces has their own story, I am interested in capturing that instant when there is an intersection of stories and lives. In short, I embrace the unpredictability because it creates meaningful coincidences, relationships and patterns, all with an unexpected sense of mystery, anxiety, joy or fear. This process of capturing the unexpected helps me to distill and understand these spaces and their inhabitants. And I also add emphasis and introspection to this through the compositional techniques that I employ.
**_Your latest work highlights the relationship between you and your mother. How is documenting your own space different from observing those of others?_**
Instead of filming my personal space, I decided to address this very personal relationship with my mother (who lives in Beijing) and the physical distance between us metaphorically. My new series entitled [**_when the East of the day meets the West of the night_**](https://vimeo.com/395557258) is a two-video diptych. The first video, filmed last fall in two locations near my previous homes in Beijing and California, looks across from both sides of the Pacific Ocean. The camera slowly moves laterally as the sun descends and ascends in two skies to create an arc-shaped trajectory. The dual scenes represent the contemplation and longing for what lies beyond. The second video follows the same format with the rising and setting moon across mountain ranges of both countries.
A third component to the project will be a daily postcard exchange with my mother that involves both words and images. The postcards will be printed stills from the videos. I’m very excited about a project prompting a daily communication with my mother.
**_Given the current circumstances, many are turning towards isolation as a preventative measure. Has this dramatic shift in the usage of public spaces influenced your work at all?_**
Unlike my previous work with collaged scenes of activities, my current work is moving towards personal reflection, a stillness in time, and a desire for a world in harmony. _when the East of the day meets the West of the night_ is a good example of this. It is somewhat ironic that at the time when I have moved to more contemplative pieces and away from filming people, that the entire world was suddenly thrust into isolation. The current moment is a strange filter through which to look at my previous work; the collaged spaces that individuals occupy mean something different from the current shelter-in-place order. When things move back to a state of normality, the public scenes will also take on a very different social connotations and protocols in the future.
**_You’ve mentioned Chinese scroll paintings as an influence for your work. How does that medium translate into the ones you use?_**
First of all, my work is meditative. it’s rooted in Chinese philosophy that seeks to find peace beneath the turbulence of daily life. Second, my aesthetics is influenced by traditional scroll paintings, which always illustrate a compressed narrative, multiple events happening at the same time. The collage techniques I use to create moving images progress through time and space like these scroll paintings. Combining both scenes and moments create an uncanny perspective that never loses sight of the individual components.
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