Moving Image & Cross-Media Artist
Poetic visual languages exploring subconsciousness,
dreams, and the fluidity of memory.
Glorious, shimmering planets carry the visage of nature's myriad forms, wandering through halls, corridors, and garment workshops. Here they frolic and play, curiously observing the tools of garment-making and the people who wield them—performing a fission and fusion of nature and human world.
The Chinese zodiac is a unique way of marking the new year. It expresses not only our hopes for each year, but also defines each generation. Time cycles, the rings of the years turn, and every descendant of the Chinese nation carries their own temporal totem. This work blends zodiac traditions with contemporary elements—street dance, sports, makeup play, cosplay—forming twelve fragments with personified zodiac youths.
Across the vast lands of China, through the long passage of time, our ancestors continuously invented "fiber" methods to engage with the world around them. People adapted to local conditions, drew from all things, and transformed the limitations of local specialties into opportunities for creation. This documentary traces silk, sericulture, and textile traditions through walking and interview-based field research.
An immersive interactive installation centered on "sweet memory exchange" with a dystopian theme. It fabricates a future society that strips away personalized sweet sensory experiences in pursuit of absolute efficiency. Visitors enter an underground resistance network—a memory black market disguised as abandoned equipment. Through voice input, visitors deposit personal feelings about "sweetness," triggering an alchemical fusion of their voice with others' memory fragments to generate a unique "memory candy."
A three-act poem about time, space, and matter. An experiment on perception itself—attempting to suspend the inertia of seeing the world, liberating "time," "body," and "consciousness" from their fixed concepts, placing them in a flowing, mutually generative field for observation. How do we gradually dismantle the boundaries between self and external, real and illusory, through material exchange with the world, ultimately arriving at a post-human landscape where energy and information coexist.
A documentary introducing the needle boneless lanterns of Xianju County, Zhejiang. We visited the birthplace of Panxi, met with inheritor Ms. Wang Rulan, and delved into the historical culture behind Xianju lanterns, demonstrating the creation process and methods. The film showcases the rich and diverse patterns and the unique crafting techniques, bringing viewers into this enchanting world of lanterns and experiencing the heritage of "Poetic Zhejiang."
A short film about exploring one's inner self through dreams. The story unfolds in a dream-within-a-dream structure, as the protagonist traces back to childhood memories to unravel the heartache left by harming butterflies as a child. During this exploration, real-world environmental issues are woven in. The butterfly serves as a connecting thread, creating an illusion: is it the human who weaves the dream, or the butterfly?
Zhou Yichen (b. 2001) is a Master's candidate at the School of Innovation Design, China Academy of Art, and a moving image & cross-media artist.
Her studies span film creation (directing, cinematography, screenwriting, art direction, independent production), programming-based interaction, and video installation. She explores subconsciousness, dreams, and the fluidity of memory through poetic visual languages, weaving narratives in the gaps between reality and surrealism.
Her works reflect contemplation on social conditions and the self, with expertise in multi-screen storytelling. Her creative practice encompasses creative short films, animation experiments, documentaries, and programming.
Zhejiang Art Museum · BY ART MATTERS · Tank Shanghai · China Millennium Monument · CAA Folk Art Museum
"Being Theoria" — Promotional trailer production
"The Road of Green Mountains Never Ends" — Exhibition promotional film
Exhibition documentary & interactive video poems
Environmental dance performance documentation