Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Yanran Bi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Yanran, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

In the summer 2023，I spent over a month in Iceland, trying my best to immerse myself in the landscape, doing research and conduct field recording. I took the following 6 months after I came back home to create this locative audio experience “Only Glaciers Know”. https://onlyglaciersknow.com/ (Mobile access recommended.)

It was all started from the story of OK(originally Okjökull), who was once the smallest glacier in Iceland and officially lost its glacier(jökull) status in 2014. A funeral was held for it in 2015. I came across the story in March 2023, and started to research and prepare for this sound art project right away.

“…He drove me up a mountain and pointed to the mountain top where OK was. What I saw was a grey mountain covered with scattered patches of white.

Somehow I thought of the dead whale lying on a shallow beach that I encountered in northern Iceland.

Its dark gray skin, exposed above the water, was worn, reminding me of volcanic rock.

It looked like a tiny island from afar…“(quotes from “Only Glaciers Know”)

Contemporary ecology and sound has long been my focus of art practices as a digital media artist. I like a lot what Judy Watson says: “Stories allows me to learn from the ground up—to feel the power of the land under my feet which resonates through my body and connects me to the Country” Being present and immersed in the site is crucial to my art practice. With limited budget, I reached out to the Icelandic non-profit organization Worldwide Friends and got their generous support to host me in their various camp locations to conduct research. In early June, I packed my sound recording equipment and arrived in Iceland.

I don’t drive, so I relied mostly on my foot and the bus service that tour around the country. Sometimes, I had to walk for nearly an hour from the campsite just to reach the nearest bus station. The route happened to pass too close to arctic tern nesting grounds, and I was attacked by the birds multiple times. I wrote a lot of diaries, including the feeling of my tiny human presence on the vast landscape of Iceland, my encounter of a dead whale on the shallow beach, and the constantly dropping water from the glacier cave ceiling that feels like a heavy rain. Part of those diaries later become my project narrative inspirations.

“Melting glaciers create all the main rivers and waterfalls in this country, like a heart pumping blood into blood vessels, giving life to all cells along the way.

Speaking of blood,

I once read a quote by Teresia Teaiwa, saying “We sweat and cry salt water, so that we know the ocean is really in our blood”.

It is, ultimately, one body of water. ”(quotes from “Only Glaciers Know”)

By the end of my research trip, I had accumulated hundreds of sound files. The editing process was long and enjoyable, almost like weaving an auditory tapestry. Each sound was carefully positioned not only in the timeline but also in the listener’s spatial perception. To enhance the immersive experience, I animated certain sounds. For instance, when wearing headphones, a waterfall’s sound might begin overhead and end beneath you, or a wave might pass through your head from left to right. While the project was documentary in nature—using real sound files and stories—it also had a fictional element, as the sounds were positioned differently than in reality. The project later opens up my new research on psycho-geography.

The piece was designed to be experienced while walking along the Icelandic coast. I am interested in the “third space” experience—merging the real world that listeners are walking through with the auditory world in their headphones. Therefore, noise-cancelling headphones are not recommended for this experience. Hope you enjoy listening.

Upon finish, the piece has been exhibited in

*Worldwide Friends, Iceland.*

*Wild Geese Gallery, NY, United States.*

*Sojourner Gallery, NY, United States.*

and is about to have its show in Switzerland this October.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an interdisciplinary artist and composer. My work spans a range of outputs, including locative audio experiences, interactive installations/instruments, and performances/exhibitions. Through these mediums, I creates poetic experiences that give form/texture to the intangible/ungraspable aspects within the entanglement of culture, landscape and time. My practice is often site-specific, immersing myself in environments to examine and extract the subtle ambiances of space—sound, light, memory, spirit—and weaving them into imagined propositions. I have worked with clients including Maison Margiela, Worldwide Friends and etc. I am open to commissions and collaborations. Feel free to mail me at [email protected], and check out my other projects at https://yanranbi.com/.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Things do not seem to exist before there is a word for it, no matter how vivid they are in my perception. I grew up speaking Mandarin, started learning English since elementary school, and know a little bit of Italian, yet none of these languages always captures the exact texture of the experience and feelings I have. This may be the reason why I so often seek to other forms of “communication” as supplementary to my natural languages and as my “measures of lives”. The seeking of these forms gradually become my art languages.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Interpretation is more important to me than intention. I trust my instinct to encounter my surroundings rather than explanations if there should be any. This probably is the reason why I find it very hard to describe those works. I have used vague descriptions like “something tender”, “feeling of a hug” and “I want people to lie down” when being asked about what I want to achieve with these works, be it an installation, a sound piece or any form that feels the most relevant to me. As I mentioned above, they are the supplementary language I rely on to communicate with the world. When I do so, when I speak the language that is true to myself at a moment, beyond all classifications that helped to shape the person I am now, I feel closer to myself, and thus closer to my audience. I believe that is what we call a “connection”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yanranbi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yanran_biii?igsh=MXN6cHhrN3NrcXI4bQ==