Luo: This exhibition is titled MA Félicité. It is said that the inspiration comes from your encounter with your studio neighbor Félicité, a Chinese woman living in Paris, surnamed Ma, whose profession is master of ceremonies for Chinese weddings in Paris.
Jin: I learned about how she organizes weddings, and I found it quite interesting. At first, I held a skeptical attitude toward weddings — I felt they were exaggerated, emotional and superficial. Later, I talked with her about how weddings are conducted. What touched me deeply was that she said she finds the process of working with couples very healing. Because she needs to write scripts, she needs to understand the stories of the two people who are engaged, and also understand the stories of their respective families. She extracts some moving things and important things, and then shares them with everyone at the wedding. To a certain extent, she heals the couple, heals the two families, and at the same time heals herself. I think this is a very beautiful thing, and it changed my very complex view of weddings.
Luo: But you used the word "healing". There is pain, there is illness and then there is the act of healing. Why is pain the premise?
Jin: Everyone has pain, not just newlyweds. Because marriage, or two families coming together, is relational — it is about relationships between people. She is somewhat like a psychologist, like counseling.
Luo: The materials you use are mostly "ready-made", and selection itself is an important creative method. Could you talk about this "selection"?
Jin: First of all, I collect many ready-made objects. Sometimes they are given by friends, sometimes picked up on the street, sometimes encountered in second-hand markets — through various channels. Sometimes, I don't feel I am deliberately looking for something; instead, I feel they come to find me. I encounter them in life — they find me. And I also feel that it is relational. For example, an object might be an old item, and I have no idea what it was used for; I may never have seen it even once in my life, and I find it very interesting. Some may look very strange. Sometimes, I also think from the perspective of industrial design, and they can also be imitations. I like many fake things — fake flowers, fake flies, fake pearl earrings, fake architectural models… After collecting them, these objects stay there, and at a certain moment they will become a combination.
I have a lot of assemblage; the gesture of assemblage is a very important gesture in my work, which is using ready-made objects and putting them together.
