weaving
Fuyu Yeh
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I am Fuyu, a story-weaver. My works always interact with the relationship between people and nature. For me, weaving is like a long journey of seeing and thinking that inspires me to explore more possibilities of textile art in contemporary creation.
What was your early motivation to express your creativity through weaving?
For me, life is about more than work. Although I am fortunate enough to do what I love creatively in the advertising industry, I am also curious about what else I can do with my creativity outside of work. My first project was to find and collect stories of my encounters in the form of documents, and then read and talk with my mother every night to discover more possibilities in existing relationships. I was looking for a way to express myself, to reflect my own observations in life, and to focus on the things I care about.
After I started weaving, each period of time I devoted to it allowed me to quietly feel and sort out the fragments of my life, to repeat experiences and thoughts in my mind, and to weave line after line with my hands like writing, as if I could transform the ideas in my mind into some kind of creative output, and through the act of weaving for different thoughts and imaginations or issues of concern, various works were formed.
We know that you previously worked in advertising. How did you decide to pivot from advertising to the art and craft world?
As a copywriter, besides producing moving stories for my clients to help with marketing, I also want to create my own stories in some form. For me, I am not changing from an advertising worker to a full-time artist, but I am devoting my life to my favorite creation, weaving it together like a book, even though it is an artistic practice that takes a lot of time, the meaning of which to me cannot be converted into labor or money.
How would you describe your practice?
For me, my artwork is not the final answer, but the proof of having thought about it. I try to find my own unique way of creation from traditional techniques, such as weaving shadows for sculptures or involving members of the community to weave together.
Because of the laborious nature of weaving itself, it must take a whole period of undisturbed time, resulting in a long and steady process of feeling and thinking, allowing me to meditate more deeply on the issues that concern me, and then have a dialogue with the world through my work.
Can you take us through your process? Do you have a favourite part of the creation process?
The process of my tapestry weaving begins with selecting and dyeing threads according to the draft, dyeing the desired color, tying the warp threads on the tapestry loom, and starting the weaving process, and gradually weaving a specific texture or pattern by overlaying a line on the previous line.
In this creation process, my favorite part is the process of conceptualizing the idea from the beginning and letting it take shape, not just sketching it out, but I am constantly tinkering with the idea and even waiting for more inspiration before choosing the colors and dyeing the threads and starting to weave, until the work touches me (and brings dopamine of joy). This is a very intuitive response, and I can't lie to myself if I don't have the feeling of being moved.
We believe that a lot of us who have sensed the deterioration of the natural world would like to do something about it, and we´re very inspired by the way you bring awareness about nature through your projects. Can you speak a little more about how did you develop an interest in telling these kinds of stories through weaving projects?
When I went to Sweden for the artist in residence program ARNA in 2016, I started a series of projects named “Map Story”. That was a starting point to combine the story-telling, local memories, and the observations in nature together to my artworks. I weaved a piece of a map to describe what I found in Harlösa, a small town in south Sweden. I also ran a mini-workshop inviting people to draw their local map with me. What's more, the experience of the artist in residence inspired me to be "conscious" of nature after I went back to urban life in Taiwan.
We know that a community from Taiwan contributed to your project Weavers with the River. Can you tell us more about this project and the decision of involving members of the community in your art projects?
The series of the project “Weavers with the River” portrayed two rivers in Taiwan. Both of them, having flowed alongside history in this narrow hinterland of Taiwan, has played the silent congenial host to the impetus of its people, from initial occupation to eventual development. Before making these two pieces, I hiked upstream from the lower reaches of the river with local residents.
This allowed me to rethink the possibility of a new symbiosis between people and the modernized river from a perspective that is very close to the current state of the river. Also, my weaving work symbolizes the process of getting to know a river, from the bottom to the top. However, after all, I am not a local, and I do not want to instill the local community with the views of foreigners. So what I can do is to create a framework through my work that embraces all kinds of local ideas, and I want to provide a more thought-provoking question rather than an answer. That’s why I invited members of the community to weave with me and infuse the piece with their imaginations of the river shores as ideal, symbiotic spaces.
Where do you think lies the biggest potential to preserve important local crafts and traditions?
Textiles are fascinating vehicles that are also very close to people's daily lives and experiences. I want to bring the craft of weaving into the lives of people and the things they care about, the way I have found is to use the craft to connect with the issues I care about or my discoveries in people's contemporary lives, bringing resonance and curiosity.
What is your greatest ambition now, when it comes to your practice?
This May, I will go to Slovakia for an art residency as a bridge guard, and the theme of my creation will also be related to rivers. I hope to use the wool to interact with pedestrians on the bridge, and to echo the tapestry weaving process from the behavioral path of walking on the bridge, so that weaving can become an artistic act that integrates light and shadow observation, walking and dialogue on the bridge, and at the same time produce a landscape sketch that reflects the current moment in time. I would like to deconstruct the tedious process of fiber art into a more contemporary creative expression, exploring the behavioral rules and meanings of the action of weaving as a weaver to guard the bridge.
Where and how can people engage more with your work?
I share most of my art creations on Instagram. Also, people can message me privately to order custom work. I have a series of works about trees named《Nice to Meet You I》 that came from the experience of seeing a tree being cut down. The broken face of a tree is something that is not easy to observe when the tree is still alive, and it is therefore scary to see when you bump into it. It made me ponder: the same section of the trunk, and I wanted to "see" her in a gentler light. I sketched the cross-section of the tree with indirect and gingerly observations and hugging touches. I wanted to draw the outline of the ring that would not be visible before the tree was cut down, and look forward to the day when we will not see each other face to face. I am also open for people to order this series from me for the trees they want to protect.
All photos belong to Fuyu.
