We recently connected with Zj Pan and have shared our conversation below.
Zj, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
As an artist, my creativity comes from everydayness. To keep it alive, I try to gaze at the everydayness that I am experiencing and reflect upon it. For example, I was curious about our everyday experience of wearing earphones/headphones, and just how we receive a big portion of our information from these devices. Thinking about how media mystifies things and that these myths are propagated through these devices. I created a totem out of fake Apple’s AirPods Pro and sticked mini frog legs to all the holes. It was a reflection on the mythological nature of media. I was trying to make fun of it. I think this is a good source of materials, and creativity relies on materials for itself to be manifested. I feel like it is a methodology.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am an visual artist working at the intersection of sculpture, wearable, installation, and electronics. My sculpture works with threatening objects to create vessels that deflate traumas, shocks, and simulations through regression, returning to an earlier phase of progression and gazing at the present. Working with representations of familiar objects, I seek to spark an uncomfortable giggle that evolves from unease to disturbance. I animate appearances and functions of objects in a DIY approach, where objects are digitally engineered and childishly treated. I work with recognizable objects that induce shocks in my life, such as a missile, my middle school, Apple’s AirPods, toys, and frogs singing in hell.
I think what I am doing is fun, and it feels like therapy a lot because I get to take control of things I can’t control. It does feel empowering, but it would be rather frivolous if done without hitting a note somewhere; that is, I try to reveal these mystical objects. For example, in my vending machine sculptures, I play pranks to my audiences. When they activate these vending machines they receive baby devices of destruction, like baby missiles and horse embryos. Here I tried to put the everyday experience of transaction here and think about how transaction simulates our modern experience, including violence and war. Yet these baby devices were eatable made out of sugars. So I felt like I am inviting people to use their mouths to conquer conquering objects.
As of now, I am working for a solo exhibition coming up in July 2025 at FACILITY, a space operated by the brilliant Chicagoan artist Nick Cave.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think the most important quality is finding my art practice and keeping tuning it. I think this takes time, because I need to first have a decent amount of work. I also need to take a step back and look at everything I did from a distance so I am not hyperfocused on just recent works. It is almost always the case that my friends see my practice clearer than how I see it, but there will be a gap between their takes and mine. I currently believe this is where tuning happens.
I think it’s also important to have opinions and be able to articulate these opinions. I like to talk about art, and I always knew there are certain things I don’t like. I felt like we are almost equally energetic talking about things we really like and things we really don’t like, and I thought being able to articulate something I really don’t like requires an equal amount of work thinking about things I really like. It says something about me and my practice, and I think this is valuable to finding a practice. And I believe it is okay for people to really don’t like my work, because this is always better than indifference.
Another essential skill is self-learning. I work across multiple disciplines, and this demands a lot of self-learning, whether it is to learn a new material, a new techniques, or a new computer software. It also demands a lot of research just to figuring out what is the best way to fabricate things. I think this aligns with problem-solving ability, and I think all artists are good problem solvers.
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
I think about surfaces in my work. Almost all of my previous work have somewhat smooth surfaces, but now I want to make abrasive surfaces. This is particularly challenging because this is something I didn’t quietly like and haven’t done before. It is against my intuition to make something purposefully abrasive, but this is where penetration happens because there are dens and up and downs and therefore vulnerability. So I think this is more of a mental shift than a shift in techniques and appearances.
Contact Info:
- Website: zjpan.cargo.site
- Instagram: @willpan_
Image Credits
Photo: Isaac Yuquan Duan
