SHURUI KONG, graduated from South China Normal University in 2019, and she is studying printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London.
Her main research direction is the combination of sound and printmaking to explore more issues of human sensory resonance.
My work ranges from unconscious behaviour in daily life, to dreams, to presentations of combination of sound and printmaking through language. I focus on the psychological and emotional resonance that people's physical senses bring to their own different environments, hoping to arouse people's attention to the essence in the rushed and complex era, or demonstrate the power of language through sound and culture.
My subject matter in each body of work determines the materials and the forms of the work. Although there may not always be material similarities between the different projects they are linked by recurring formal concerns and through the subject matter. Each of my projects is composed of a different series of media, but I always start with my own essence, during research and production new areas of interest arise and lead to the next body of work.
My current work Six Tones is a mixed-media installation that use my first language Cantonese as an example, engraving Cantonese song lyrics as audio lines on to tree trunks. There is a collection of the singing voices of some participants, as well as a publication of cartoon images carved from the stories behind these nursery rhymes. The work takes on various forms intended to draw in the viewer as co-author and witness, create emotional transmission through hearing, sight, and touch, and increasing the attention of all viewers to their own language and culture.
