ZENGYUAN MA
BY QIN SHEN
ZENGYUAN MA (b. 2000, China) and QIN SHEN first met during their MFA program, where they became not only classmates but close friends. The two often talk during the making of their work, exchanging thoughts, critiques, and suggestions as projects gradually take shape. Zengyuan's work carries a delicate tenderness, yet within it flows a powerful current of force. When you encounter her works in person, the emotional intensity becomes immediately palpable as the works invite you in and embrace you. In this conversation, Qin extends the discussion beyond the works themselves, exploring the experiences and personal reflections that shape Zengyuan's artistic practice.
Zengyuan Ma, Labyrinth, 2025. Coffin nails, wood panel, silk, acrylic paint, 22 × 34 × 10 inches.
Qin Shen: Your work often centers on the female body as a site where memory, culture, and power intersect. What initially drew you to explore this theme?
Zengyuan Ma: It is love. More precisely, a kind of primordial, almost instinctive maternal love. When this form of love is placed within structures of social discipline, cultural expectations, and political forces, it often becomes displaced or even distorted. Both the person who gives this love and the one who receives it can experience a subtle, difficult-to-articulate emotional imbalance. It is precisely this sense of dissonance-something slightly awkward or misaligned-that continually draws me to observe and reflect on the experiences carried by the female body.
QS: Your practice often explores contradicting concepts about female bodies and identities in East Asia. Is there anything specific about the idea of "contradiction" that intrigues you?
ZM: This kind of "contradiction" is not something that can be resolved in the short term; rather, it is a structure that has been sustained over a long period of time. Particularly within the cultural context of East Asia, the female body and identity are often assigned conflicting expectations at once-on the one hand, they are sanctified as the origin of life; on the other, they are strictly disciplined, expected to remain silent, restrained, and controllable. I am very sensitive to this state of tension. For me, tension itself carries a certain beauty. It signifies the simultaneous presence of opposing forces pulling against each other-love and control, generation and depletion, strength and vulnerability. In my practice, I am not trying to resolve these contradictions. Instead, I am more interested in allowing them to be seen at the same time within a single work, letting this tension become part of the work's very structure.
QS: You often create installation works that involve intensive labor; such as meticulous beading and hand-sculpted skeletal structures. In our previous conversations, you mentioned that you don't particularly enjoy long, repetitive processes. Yet these elements continue to appear in many of your projects. How do you understand this pattern in your practice? What keeps drawing you back to labor-intensive, craft-based work despite the physical and mental demands?
ZM: When I first introduced this kind of highly labor-intensive, craft-based process into my work, I described it as being like an atheist praying every day. What was truly difficult for me was not the physical fatigue brought by long hours of repetitive labor, but the sense of meaninglessness. However, I gradually realized that this kind of repetitive manual work was once the everyday way of life for many women throughout history. If I want my work to touch upon that experience, then this labor itself cannot be omitted. As time accumulates, it transforms the quality of the work, and the material itself begins to change in texture. Gradually, this exhaustion turned into a kind of meditation for me. Repetition is no longer merely a technical necessity; it is also the process through which my body enters the work. Through this intense physical involvement, the work no longer remains at the level of concept, but becomes something that has been genuinely experienced through the body. This labor is both making and understanding-it allows me to approach a span of time that many women have repeatedly lived through, yet which has rarely been seen.
QS: I really appreciate how honest your works are, as you bring in your own life experience and stories into them. I felt invited to reflect on my own life when I experienced your works. Is there a central question in your practice that you have for your viewers?
ZM: I often ask viewers a question: Is what we have come to call "beauty" built upon a kind of pain that has been overlooked-or even normalized? Within the cultural context of East Asia, the female body is often idealized as gentle, pure, and meant to be looked at. At the same time, it is also expected to endure and conceal a persistent form of pain. When this contradiction persists over time, that pain can become internalized through repetition and gradually accepted as "normal." My work does not attempt to provide an answer. Rather, it invites viewers, when confronted with a form that is both beautiful andunsettling, to recognize this structure and begin to reconsider it.
QS: You often describe life as something given passively, but living as an active choice. How does this belief appear in the structure of the work?
ZM: Life itself happens passively, but living means repeatedly making the decision to continue. For this reason, in my work I try to avoid leaving viewers in the position of simply observing; instead, I place them in situations where a choice must be made. For example, in The Narrow Gate, viewers are not just looking at an image. They must decide whether to approach, whether to enter, and whether to pass through. That process itself becomes an action. When the body actually crosses a space, that moment resembles a very small but real act of choice. Through this structure, I hope viewers can recognize that continuing to live is not an abstract idea, but something that happens through a series of concrete crossings.
QS: What role do the viewers play in completing the meaning of your works? Or is their participation enough to complete them? Take The Narrow Gate as an example. When the viewers walk through the gate, what is the significance of their action to the work?
ZM: In this work, viewers are not only recipients of meaning; their participation itself is part of the work. The deeper meaning of the piece is activated through their actions. When a person decides whether to approach, enter, or to pass through, they are in fact experiencing a very concrete act of choice. Therefore, in Narrow Gate, the viewer's bodily action not only participates in the meaning of the work but also completes its structure.
QS: I know The Narrow Gate is based on something you learned through your life experience. Did you learn something new about yourself while making it? What emotions stayed with you throughout the long process of making this work?
ZM: While making The Narrow Gate, I did not experience a sudden moment of being illuminated by a new understanding of myself. Instead, it was more a process of gradually confirming things I had long sensed. I always knew that I would eventually make a work like this; earlier on, however, I did not yet know what form it should take. As time passed and experience accumulated, this vague intuition slowly became a very clear decision-I realized that the time had come to complete it. Throughout the long process of making the work, the emotions that accompanied me were not intense or explosive. They were more like a slow and continuous mixture of reflection and determination. Not like a volcanic eruption, but more like the slow movement of tectonic plates, allowing something deep, long-standing, and previously invisible to gradually surface. What I gained was a kind of confirmation that settled slowly through time-remarkably calm, yet very firm.
QS: Alongside your installation works, you also produce paintings and drawings. How do these more intimate formats connect to or inform your larger. more complex installations?
ZM: My installations and paintings are not two separate practices, but rather two ways of thinking at different scales. I often compare making an installation to writing a book, while painting is more like keeping a diary. Painting is usually more intimate; it records emotions, dreams, or fragments of life that have not yet been fully understood. In painting, I can confront these images very directly and allow them to exist without explanation. For this reason, painting is often where many of my ideas first appear. Installation, on the other hand, is an extension of these ideas once they begin to take a clearer form. When certain experiences or questions are no longer only personal, but start to involve space, the body, and the viewer, they develop into installations. In this sense, my paintings are where thinking takes place, while installations are the form those thoughts take once they enter public space.
