Artist Highlight - Xin Huang

1. Fairy Ring begins with the growth pattern of fungi, but it is made through concrete, steel and bolts. What interested you in translating something organic into the language of construction?

I am interested in the way human-made systems often borrow from, extract from, or imitate natural forms. We are always inside nature, but we also constantly take certain qualities from it and make them useful for ourselves. In Fairy Ring, I wanted to make this act of translation visible. Fungal growth is soft, unstable and often uncontrollable, while concrete, steel and bolts suggest stability, function and construction. By bringing these languages together, the work becomes less about representing nature directly, and more about showing how organic forms can be captured, hardened and reorganised through human systems.

2. The portobello mushroom is already cultivated and standardised for human use. How did that affect the way you approached it as a form?

The portobello mushroom interested me because it is already a natural form that has been absorbed into human systems. It is cultivated, repeated, standardised and made useful as food. This made me think about the difference between wild growth and controlled production. I did not want the mushroom to appear romantic or purely natural. Instead, I approached it as something that had already been shaped by human intervention. By replacing its soft, edible surface with concrete and metal, I wanted to exaggerate this condition: a living form that has been made orderly, functional and strangely heavy.

3. Your sculptures sit between mushroom, wheel and urban component. Do you want the viewer to recognise one form clearly, or remain uncertain?

I prefer the form to remain uncertain. I often find myself unconsciously deepening this ambiguity in my work, rather than resolving it. The sculptures can be read as mushrooms, wheels, fragments of infrastructure, or strange urban components, but I do not want one reading to dominate. This uncertainty is important to me because I do not want the work to teach the viewer a clear lesson or deliver a fixed critique. I prefer to present a low-voiced ambiguity, where the work’s position is also slightly unstable. It leaves space for the viewer to complete the meaning themselves.

4. The circular arrangement suggests natural growth, but also system, repetition and control. How do you think about the circle in this work?

The circle in Fairy Ring comes from the growth pattern of fungi, but I also think of it as a system. A fairy ring can suggest wild proliferation, but it also has a strange sense of order. In this work, that order becomes more controlled and manufactured through repetition. The circle becomes both a trace and a structure: it could be the remains of a growth process, or something deliberately arranged. I am interested in this double reading. The circle suggests expansion, but also containment; natural growth, but also human systems of control.

5. The wheel-like forms imply movement, yet the installation remains still and heavy. What does that contradiction mean to you?

The wheel-like form introduces a quiet humour into the work. A wheel usually suggests movement, function and efficiency, but these objects are heavy, static and unable to move. I like this contradiction because it interrupts the expectation of usefulness. At the same time, the stillness and weight also connect to my interest in ruins. I am drawn to ruins because they confuse time and space; they can feel like monuments, but also like remains after human presence has disappeared. In Fairy Ring、, the objects seem to belong to a system, but that system no longer works.

6. You often work with overlooked urban materials and infrastructural spaces. What do you find alive in things like debris, pipes, vents and concrete?

My interest in these materials is closely connected to memories of my hometown, Chongqing. Because of its mountainous terrain, the city develops vertically as much as horizontally. Over the past decades, rapid modernisation has transformed it through bridges, staircases, flyovers, railways and layers of concrete infrastructure. As a small body moving through this vertical city, I sometimes felt surrounded by concrete, almost as if walking inside a cement jungle. For me, concrete is not just a construction material; it carries the feeling of being held inside a massive urban body. In debris, pipes, vents and concrete, I sense traces of pressure, circulation, growth and decay.

7. Rather than representing nature directly, your work suggests growth and decay through industrial matter. Why is that indirectness important?

Indirectness is important because I do not want to separate nature and the built environment too easily. I am not interested in making natural forms look natural. Instead, I want to explore how ideas of growth, decay and transformation can appear through materials that seem industrial, artificial or infrastructural. This feels closer to the environments I know, where mountains, rivers, concrete, bridges and railways are constantly entangled. By using industrial matter, I can approach nature through displacement rather than imitation. It also allows the work to remain uncertain: both organic and constructed, both familiar and slightly alien.

8. The installation sits low to the ground, almost like a growth or residue spreading across the floor. How do you want the viewer’s body to respond to that placement?

I want the viewer to become aware of the ground. The work does not rise up like a monument, but stays low, close to the surface of the floor. This placement makes the viewer look down, walk around it, and notice their own body in relation to the circle. It suggests something that has grown, settled, or been left behind. I am interested in this quiet relationship between the body and residue: the work is not confrontational, but it slightly changes how the viewer occupies the space. For a long time, human development has been imagined through looking upwards, towards height, progress and the sky. Perhaps it is also time to lower our gaze, and look again at the ground beneath us.

9. Your practice treats the built environment as a body in process. What kind of body is present in Fairy Ring?

The body in Fairy Ring is not a human body, but a body made from fragments, repetition and residue. It could be understood as a small part of a larger infrastructural organism: something that has grown out of the ground, or something left behind by a system that is no longer visible. I often think about the built environment as something that accumulates, sheds, blocks, breathes and mutates. In this work, the body is heavy and still, but it also suggests a hidden process. It is a body between growth and ruin.

10. When viewers encounter these concrete fungi or urban remnants, what do you hope they begin to notice in the city around them?

I hope viewers begin to notice the strange life of ordinary urban materials. Things like bolts, cracks, vents, concrete edges or construction fragments often disappear into the background, but they shape how we move through the city. I am interested in the fantasy that after humans, or after a certain species, these overlooked materials might continue to grow, accumulate or transform in their own way. After encountering Fairy Ring, I hope viewers might look again at the ground, at infrastructural fragments, or at small forms of residue in the city, and sense that the built environment is not still or neutral, but constantly in process.