Zi Xun Dang

Through my work, I explore attachment, loss and the process of being adopted, reflecting on the complexity of identity and belonging. My practice asks questions without answers. Through the theme of adoption and being adopted, I try to visually express the complex emotions and intimate questions this topic evokes, using found and discarded materials to recreate what is needed.

Due to my adoption, I experienced a sense of rootlessness and a loss of history, which made it difficult to feel at home. At the same time, this experience has also caused me to consciously feel at home anywhere. In China, I am a Dutch Chinese and in the Netherlands, I am a Chinese Dutch. Being an orphan, and in that sense rootless, has developed into both an opportunity and a particular way of looking at the material world and my work. I adapt myself to other places with a heightened awareness of my surroundings. For me, there is an innate urge to create a sense of home wherever I am. This feeling arises from the necessity of reflecting on moving, losing, finding and being found. A sense of home becomes a balance between longing for safety, stability, acceptance and the experience of having a home and not having one.

Over the past years, I have become fascinated with Arte Povera, Land Art and Object-Oriented Ontology, particularly their use of lost or discarded materials. I have also recently developed a strong interest in the work of Francis Alÿs, Bill Viola and Sara van der Heide. Creating and curating works with lost or discarded materials in different places has become a way of adopting these materials and recreating their histories. Materials, like people, carry stories; through care and attention, they can adopt us back, forming bonds of trust, memory and care.

Through my work, I explore attachment, loss and the process of being adopted, reflecting on the complexity of identity and belonging. My practice asks questions without answers: What do we adopt and what adopts us? How can care, attention and presence transform what is lost into something that feels like home? What is the difference between identity and identify, adopt and adapt? Through the theme of adoption and being adopted, I try to visually express the complex emotions and intimate questions this topic evokes, using found and discarded materials to recreate what is needed.