Ziyue Luo
Ziyue Luo is a Shenzhen and Edinburgh-based artist who graduated from the Hubei institute of Fine Arts with a BA in Watercolor Painting in 2023. She is currently pursuing an MA in Contemporary Art Practice at the Edinburgh College of Art. Using installation, painting, photography and video, Luo explores the body and its derivatives, trying to evoke natural empathy on physical and cultural levels.
Ziyue Luo’s works, through materials such as fabric, wax and watercolour, explore the ongoing mutability between body and matter. In her installations Cord and Tie down, the gestures of binding and pulling not only create a visible tension but re-enact the body’s negotiation between emotion and structure.
The pieces appear both protected and exposed—enclosed in a soft shell while exuding a sense of internal unrest. They seem like extensions of the body, or manifestations of emotional states—always on the edge of transformation, dissolution, and regeneration.
In this exhibition, Luo’s work is situated along the narrative line of “plasticity.” It offers not a definition of the body, but a vision of the body as a processual, mutable being—shaped by perception, pressure, and resistance.
Who is shaping our bodies?
This reminds me of Janine Antoni’s work Loving Care, which uses the body (hair) to intervene in the creative space, turning physical labour into creative action. The body is also used as a starting point for the narrative, focusing on the way it is used, perceived, disciplined or liberated. The body is not an abstract concept, but a carrier shaped by time and experience.
Siri Burt is an active New York-based visual artist with a BFA in Photography and Video from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice with honours from the University of Edinburgh in 2024.
Her installation Blind Eyes Burn Skin (2024) confronts the fragility and regenerative power of the body within the sensory system through a multi-media composition of ceramic, steel and video.
The ‘burn’ and ‘invisibility’ in the work are both representations and metaphors – symbolising the perceptual friction between vision and skin, and suggesting the body’s response to its environment in the midst of continuous change, emotional and traumatic responses of the body to ongoing change.
Burt’s choice of materials presents a stark contrast: hard steel and fissile ceramics combine to form a seemingly static, yet intrinsically tense physical space. Here, the skin is not only a wrapping, but also a feeling; not a boundary, but a sensor of life’s changes.
By including Burt’s works in the exhibition, I hope that when the viewers are confronted with the works, they will not only see the ‘form of the body’, but also feel the state of the body – constantly adapting, being damaged, healing and reconstructing. She uses static objects to simulate the dynamic process of change, making ‘plasticity’ a way of being that is both fragile and powerful.
The title of the work means ‘taut’ and explores the relationship between physical tension and formal boundaries.
With the central themes of ‘fluids’ and ‘containers’, the series reflects on the nature of life and the potential connection between humans and mammals in terms of feeding, flow and nourishment. Materials include ceramics, milky white liquids, and transparent structures.
Combining ceramics, steel and video, the installation focuses on ‘sensory experience’ and ‘bodily vulnerability’, simulating changes in the skin’s perception of the outside world, creating a sense of tactile and psychological tension.
References：
Janine Antoni:
Antoni, J. (n.d.). Janine Antoni – Artist Website. Available at: https://www.janineantoni.net (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Antoni, J. (1993). Loving Care [Performance]. Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London. Description and documentation available at: https://www.janineantoni.net/loving-care (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Ziyue Luo:
Luo, Z. (2023). Ziyue Luo – ECA Graduate Show Portfolio. Edinburgh College of Art. Available at: https://www.graduateshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/portfolio/ziyue-luo (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Luo, Z. (2023). Cord and Tie Down [Mixed media installation]. Graduate Degree Show, Edinburgh College of Art. Documentation available at: https://www.graduateshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/portfolio/ziyue-luo (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Siri Burt
Burt, S. (n.d.). Siri Burt – Artist Website. Available at: https://www.siriburt.com (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Burt, S. (2024). Blind Eyes Burn Skin [Mixed media installation]. ECA Graduate Show, Edinburgh College of Art. Description and portfolio available at: https://www.graduateshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/portfolio/siri-burt (Accessed: 22 March 2025).
Tie down © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 
Cord © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Loving Care,1993 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
TAUT, 2019 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Spiritual Milk，2022 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Freedom feels like a mouth，2024 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Fused throats，2024 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Blind Eyes Burn Skin，Newspaper Handout, A3 © 2025 by Chuni Mao is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
