Yue Cheng
The World - Installation - 2023
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 25
The World uses a combination of sculpture and digital video to explore the themes of marine archaeology, industrial collapse and the recovery of prehistoric marine life from a futuristic perspective. The artist addresses the issue of anthropocentrism and the ecological crisis in this two-chapter work.
The first chapter takes the form of a sculpture depicting the primitive appearance of ruined foundations submerged in the sea. The second chapter takes the form of a video showing the arrival of prehistoric marine species such as dugongs and mangroves.
With this eco-somatic space, this work invites viewers to reflect on our relationship with the environment and to question the possibilities of recovery from the damage caused by human activity.
Born in China in 1995, Yue Cheng is an artist-researcher. She is currently a doctoral student in artistic creation at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in collaboration with the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Her project draws on her experiences of growing up in China at a time of rapid development, when the question of the intersection between anthropocentrism and ecological crisis was constantly arising. Based on current environments in the Anthropocene era, she questions the future of human habitation in a speculative fabulation, exploring different scales of ecosystems, such as underground cities, artificial islands, the sphere, and the mycelial system, thus linking phenomena that were once disparate, but are nonetheless constitutive of our modernity, such as the advent of consumer society, the permanence of old revolutionary discourses and urbanisation. Her projects are not limited to a single form: from photography to video, taking in sculpture and digital hybrids, she adopts a poetic approach in order to create a condensed microcosm that reflects a global, non-dualistic vision of the world. Her works, imbued with philosophical perspectives from both East and West, become neutral spaces where profound reflections on the spectacle can unfold. Her work invites viewers to question the notions of utopia and dreams, and to reflect on the sustainability of contemporary society and the relationship between man and his environment.
