YIYI WEI

Brooklyn, NY

CREATIVE DISCIPLINE-

Interdisciplinary

PRIMARY MEDIUM(S)-
Glass, interactive installation, performance, writing

ARTIST STATEMENT-
My work is an ongoing exercise in perceiving the ecology of being. I explore and draw inspiration from the connections between entities in both physical and metaphysical conceptions of space. I examine these connections by looking closely at ‘intra-actions’ between human and non-human entities in a network of existence. The relationship between each individual in the network is constantly in flux. By looking for a poetic space of inter-connections transpired by interactions, I hope to acknowledge the complexity of the world we inhabit across time and culture and reveal the elegance of this entangled system of life. Writing, performance, and participatory act are used to conduct the concept of my installations, which are developed through experimentations with material phenomenons and explorations of human histories. For the past years, I have created interactive and performative installations exploring a range of research from endangered plant species to sugar blowing; from growing fractals to a smell that is not a scent. Currently, I am diving into the universe of microorganisms as a continuous attempt to articulate the fleeting moments in this poetic, ‘messy’ ecological network. New projects I am researching and experimenting with are, for instance, the hand-blown glass Scent Catchers exploring human’s olfactory system, memory, and the environment; The text and textile Underside Poems thinking about roots, mesofaunas, and mycorrhizal fungi that live under the soil, which plays an essential role in the ecology; and inspired by traditional Chinese textiles, weaving endangered peatland creatures as totems of protection.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY- 
Yiyi Wei is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in China. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design Glass Department, where she began to consider her artworks as processes that perceive the entangled connections between human and non-human existences. Weaving between the tangible and the transient, Yiyi Wei explores performances, interactive installations, and poetic writings to contemplate our posture within a system of symbiotic relationships across time and culture. Wei considers cross-discipline research and communication as important activities in her studio practice. She has collaborated with neurologists and biologists and fostered relationships through conversations with historians, geologists, and botanists for research projects. Yiyi Wei was honored with scholarships to Pilchuck Glass School and Penland School of Craft to enrich her creative vocabulary in communities of artists. She was awarded Maharam STEAM fellowship 2019 to work collaboratively with Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York’s Bronx Zoo, and their Tibetan branch at Chang Tang Plateau. In 2021, Yiyi Wei received a virtual residency Conversations in Practice, from Ox-Bow, where she continuously worked through her experience in Chang Tang and conversed with other artists on performance, grief, and body. Weihas performed her work at Flux Factory in Queens, NY; exhibited at Woods-Gerry gallery, The Wurks, and Gelman Gallery in Providence, RI. She also co-curated “Mind the [ ]” at the Wurks gallery. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, and works as a freelance artist, glass fabricator, and studio technician at Brooklyn Glass.