Project
Since the 1980s, Liang Shaoji has pioneered a unique artistic practice centered on sericulture, or the art of raising silkworms to produce silk. After studying soft sculpture under Bulgarian tapestry master Maryn Varbanov at the China Academy of Art, Liang’s work with silkworms began during China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization, offering a counterpoint to modernization by honoring slow, natural processes and traditional knowledge. His innovative “Nature Series” has evolved over thirty years into a sustained exploration of a single biological relationship and cohabitation with the worms.
The artist’s methodology involves careful nurturing of silkworms through their complete life cycle—feeding, metamorphosis, silk production, and reproduction—transforming sericulture from agricultural practice into philosophical meditation. “Listen to the Silkworms / Nature Series No. 96” (2006) invites visitors into a contemplative microcosm of cohabitation with the worms. The soundscape is composed of the noises of the larvae consuming mulberry leaves and spinning silk.
Can Chanchan (Silkworm Spinning) (2015) is composed of a single-channel video partially projected onto a silk textile, focusing on the patterns of silk which vary with the changing temperatures and humidity of the seasons.
Through his intimate collaboration with non-human life, Liang creates works that collapse distinctions between natural process and artistic creation, challenging Western notions of authorship and intentionality. In the words of the artist: “The West is looking for rationality, and the East is looking for the divine.”
Stefanie Hessler
More Pictures:
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信