GALLERY WHERE presented the artist duo Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping's series of cross-media works combining photography, sound, and moving images created during their residencies in Olafsfjordur, Iceland, Gulangyu Island, China, and Montagne, Switzerland at NAFI 2023. In the art practice of Wu Yumo and Zhang Zeyangping, communication with nature stems from a localized experience. Unlike traditional photography, their working approach integrates the practices of the body and materials, focusing on the ways of connecting daily life with the natural environment. In forests, streams, or indoor spaces they traverse and linger in, Yumo and Zeyangping allow paper and fabric to be imbued by mist, leaves, and stream water, intervening in nature as little as possible, letting the creation grow spontaneously and naturally in a meditative state. Consciously viewing themselves and their surroundings as an equal symbiotic relationship, the artists attempt to break boundaries between subject and object, human traces and nature, and even forms of representation. This characteristic is particularly evident in the "Sound Envelope" series. This series juxtaposes human-made traces in a space with a specific botanical element from the natural world, presenting overlapping spatial dimensions and material attributes within the same geographic range, thus creating a visual language where the concrete and abstract permeate each other. The collaboration with a music ensemble transforms materials into sounds in a cross-media format based on images, evoking an inherent synesthetic experience. In the encounter with elements of nature, they exchange information in a tacit and silent language. The artworks seem like a capture of a moment in time, as well as a manifestation of the intimate dialogue between humans and nature.
WU YUMO & ZHANG ZEYANGPING (吴禹墨 & 张泽洋平)
Wu Yumo & Zhang Zeyangping (b. 1988, 1989) respectively graduated from the China Academy of Art and Central University for Nationalities. They currently livs and works in Beijing, China. Their solo exhibitions include: Forests, Breezes, Streams, and Gleams, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, CN (2022); Don't Ask Anything Else to the Forests, SMArt Sustainable Mountain Art Project, Montagne, Switzerland (2022); BIGCI-2019, Sydney Artist Residency Program, Sydney, Aus (2019). Their major group exhibitions include: Sometimes Your Legs Move the Sleeping Waves, Jimei-Arles International Photo Festival - Local Action Exhibition, Gulangyu Art Academy, Xiamen, CN (2022); Whispers of Nature, 25th BIEL Photography Festival, Biel, Switzerland (2022); Bridge of Crossings - China and Mexico Contemporary Art Exhibition, Mexico Prime Minister's Museum, Mexico City, MX (2019); Inter-World-View, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, CN (2019); Factory, Deyðarvík, Iceland (2018).
