hurry - wingwoman - hurry / worrying and wondering

Rammed earth poetry, June 2024

Xinan Helen Ran and Sarah Lammer, Stone Quarry Art Park, Syracuse, New York.

By hand tamping the local clay-rich topsoil, lime, and water inside giant letter foam molds, this new iteration of the "SoilSandSelfie" project bakes “pound cakes” that transform found text into rammed earth poetry as land art. The rammed text will slowly disintegrate in the next few months— by the rain, the wind and the creatures roaming around the land.

SoilSandSelfie Interview with SQAP Artistic Director Sayward Schoonmaker

Installed September 8–October 31, on the front lawn of the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, MA, Where We Belong: Tree Chuangs was commissioned by the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Three site-specific textile sculptures were created in collaboration with local communities and the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. Sixty-six people ages 14–80 contributed through hands-on workshops offered by the HMSC Museum Education department. 

Photo credit: EJSP Visual | Julieta Sarmiento, courtesy Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

Installed in September behind the Sunset Park Rec Center in Brooklyn, NY. Two Chuangs were created in partnerships with four south Brooklyn organizations: Apex For Youth, Mixteca, Voces Ciudadanas, and Artyard Brooklyn. The project was supported by 2023 Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant.

Tree Chuang is a series of 6 site-specific textile sculptures that create multifaceted sensorial experiences throughout the grounds of Governor’s Island. Using the form of a traditional Chinese chuang—a cylindrical textile ritual apparatus commonly used in Buddhism—as a launching point, the works are both created collaboratively and showcase the unique personal narratives of NYC youths. Able to be viewed by the audience from both the outside and the inside, each structure serves as a metaphor for the duality of internal psychic space and external social space that we simultaneously inhabit as we navigate the world.  

This project is generously supported by Beam Center as a part of the Beam Camp City 2022. The organization brings together youth, artists, engineers, and educators to produce ambitious, collaborative projects.

More about the Tree Chuang project >>

Photos by Stefany Lazar

7000SEEDS digs into the shared illogical paranoia of the invasive other, and unearths the seemingly scientific cause-and-effects that we take as truth–out of anxiety and the fantasy for self-sufficiency–in a global market that is tumbling towards a slow ecological collapse.

The title 7000SEEDS is inspired by the 2001 manga series 7SEEDS by Yumi Tamura, which follows the struggle of five groups of young adults after their revival from cryonic chambers called “seeds.” The “seeds” in 7000SEEDS act both as invasive species and as intrusive thoughts–they are collected, purchased, preserved, and eventually–literally and metaphorically–planted, into a tangled fantasy of doomsday survival and destruction.

7000SEEDS at Essex Flowers

Press release >>

Conceived site-specific to the home of Tutu and April as a continuation of Xinan’s last project Future Trash, everyday items including floor cushions, shower curtains, hang tags, markers, and fragrances are paired with text through embroidery, heat transfer, gluing, drawing, and writing.

The exhibition is installed around the living room, the kitchen, and the bathroom, posting as a scavenger hunt backdropped by the accumulation of private life.

Very Sweet at Tutu Gallery

Press Release >>

TLC series

Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) on paper, marker, pencil. Series of 20+ individual drawings on paper. 3” wide, variable length.

Playing with the uncertainty of a scientific method, this combination of color and text depicts the theme of intimate joy.

Inquire to see more pieces in this series

The project explores the politically different, yet similar cultural habits that China and the US share under the influence of late-stage capitalism. Through handmade, speculative products inspired by novelty gadgets, or “Unitaskers,” I examines the heightened prevalence of the contemporary wellness market.

The project “Future Trash” encompasses soft sculptures, printed materials, installation and performance in collaboration with Miguel Alejandro Castillo. 

Inspired by Haraway’s Chthulucene, these hybrids of rugs, faux biotic human tissues and artificial scent envision alternative ways to exist in a post-human environment where animal instinct replaces traditional societal structures in an altered, feral habitat.

The works combine tufted yarn with areas of skin-toned silicone which are tattooed and grafted with human hair. Though tufted surfaces are a mainstay of cozy domestic interiors, these works are alien in form, forcing the viewer to unlearn what they know as a domestic body or object.

15 minutes.

Listen to it wherever you are.

This is a 5 minute clip of a 15 minute piece.

One Train, 2019. 6mins

Production: Superstation Experimental TV Studios