Studio Visit Junyi Lu

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Looking at the different sizes and mediums Junyi works in, she explains how it all starts with emotions. “I’m interested in mental experiences and am aware of how personal emotions can sit in a larger context.” She tells me how she is interested in psychodynamics, situating ephemeral feelings within the process of individuation and the longer histories and cultures that are both private and collective. 

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Specifically, she explores the notion of home, a surreal place that generates both familiarity and estrangement. Revisiting memories of attending boarding schools at an early age in China, spending five years in the United States, and now living in London, Junyi’s work observes the emotional intensity surrounding her identity fabricated in constant movement and cultural clashes. ‘My work reveals to me things about myself that I haven't figured out yet,’ she explains. This emotional landscape of searching, longing and anxiety for a sense of self and belonging underpins her practice.

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She shares how often after long studio days, she likes to cycle home at midnight and peek into the living rooms of other people. “I don’t have a confident understanding of home,” she explains. “I’m curious what it’s like for other people. That’s why I try to grasp the concept by looking at their interiors—the choice of decoration, what they are watching on TV.”

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In the new body of work she is currently developing, she thinks about the architecture of the home and how private and public spaces are decided. She ponders what feelings a room can evoke and what makes it feel like home, focusing on the overlap between sentimental associations and material realities.

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She also works with copper pipes to explore how the sewage system represents an invisible connection between the personal and the collective. Historically, for the majority of residents, doing laundry, washing dishes, and using toilets were social activities involving public interaction. With the modern sewage system, this is no longer the case. Drawing on the self-sufficiency of this infrastructure, Junyi contemplates isolation in relation to mental health and how the capitalist values of independence reshape our intimate relationships. Through the symbol of pipes, her research intertwines the socio-political perceptions of home with personal emotions of loneliness, desire, and fear.

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Junyi uses unusual materials, stitching, kitchen towels, reclaimed fabric from clothes and shoes. “I make the work until it's almost perfect, leaving space for people to connect, imagine potentials, and make their own interpretations. It brings more life into it.”

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In another body of work, the paintings are framed with leather that looks like photographic stands. They reference the picture frames her mother has at home. In a way, she tries to connect to something that should feel like home, but it also feels anxious. It makes her think about how her mom was at her age and makes her wonder if she would share similar mental experiences.

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“There is not a clear logic to it. It’s this feeling of wanting to escape the now and fantasising that the past would be an ideal time,” but she realises that you can never escape the now, and there is no way to fully grasp the past.

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