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

Yanwen, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is titled NO U TURN, which is an editorial/exhibition design project, inspired by the exhibition ‘China/Avant-garde’, which was hosted at the National Art Gallery in Beijing in the spring of 1989.

As a human who was born and raised in China, this topic is closely tied to my own identity; as a designer who believes in the power of design, I truly hope this project can provoke thinking.

For Art and China, 1989 was both an end and a beginning. The June Fourth Tiananmen Square Protest marked the end of a decade of political openness. Intellectual and artistic exploration came to a halt by the time after the chaos.

30 years later in 2019, I curated a virtual exhibition at SFMOMA, featuring eight radical contemporary artists. Their work not only reflects the urgent need for individuality in the transforming Chinese society but also inspires and encourages young Chinese artists who would like to advocate for social justice with their works to carve out their paths.

Yanwen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a graphic designer. My full Chinese name is “Yanwen”. I go by Wen but am defined by “yan”. “Yan” is the name of an inkstone used for grinding and containing the ink used in calligraphy and painting. Like the stone, I am reliable and supportive, yet unlike the rigidity of stone, I am also flexible.

It’s natural for me to choose a creative career path because of my family. I grow up in a family which has a close relationship with art. My dad is a photographer and my great-grandpa is a very famous Chinese painter who contributed a lot to contemporary Chinese painting. Surrounded by picture albums and photography collections, I was getting curious about how ink and lighting could create a huge impact. Thus, I decided to dedicate myself to the creative world.

I am a graphic designer who believes graphic design has the power to reveal and reframe complex hidden socio-political information. I focus on typography, editorial design, and branding. I also expand my creative capabilities by diving into the world of physical media. From exposing film in the darkroom, etching copper plates with acid, and forming clay on a pottery wheel, my eclectic experiences in fine art help me value the creative process as much as the outcome and appreciate concepts as much as the visuals. I believe that combining empathy, curiosity, and passion can create something solid and stand the test of time in my creative endeavors.

I was awarded Top Talent by Adobe Design Achievement in 2019 and was featured on The Design Kids, a design platform. My works have been awarded Typographic Excellence by Type Director Club, awarded as a Silver Winner by Graphis Award, and have been included in The World’s Best Typography and TDC66 exhibition.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think the journey of my design-studying path will give a good answer to this question.

Like I said earlier, I grew up in a family which has a close relationship with art. It’s natural to dedicate myself to the creative world. I started studying traditional painting and drawing back in high school. At the time, although I started to study painting systematically, I was only limited to the practice and improvement of the technical level.

When I was a freshman in my freshman year, I began eagerly to develop a design style of my own. At that time, I was really into the concept of Muji, I read almost all the design books written by Kenya Hara, the director of Muji.

I still remember that, in his book “Why Design”, describes humans would create “containers” to scoop up water by folding their hands. Humans need various “containers” to carry things, not only Things that have substance but also include things in the abstract sense, such as ideas and worldviews.

Deeply influenced by this passage, my understanding of graphic design has undergone a qualitative change since then. Many people think that design is a profession, a means of making a living, and measuring the value of a graphic design work often needs to be reflected in its commercial value. But in my opinion, graphic design, like all other artistic expression media, such as painting, sculpture, and installation, is just a carrier, it can be used as a pure artistic expression means to express and carry what a designer/graphic artist wants An opinion expressed her understanding of certain issues or her worldview.

When I first came to the US for my undergraduate studies, I studied communication design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In this school, for the first time, I was fascinated by the diversity of artistic expression, the difference between human beings, and the tolerance and encouragement of being different in this society. I began to reconsider whether the basic painting teaching I received in China was great and very academic. I have not denied the value of traditional painting techniques. I am still very grateful to have had the opportunity to lay very good basic painting skills in high school. But I’m rethinking the unrestrained limitations of a unified painting style and a unified selection standard for art or design majors. So in that year, I made a design work that I still like very much. I chose a short story from Borges’ poems called Everything and Nothing. In the story Borges tells of a character who, as an actor, played many roles, pretending to be various identities, mainly because he could not find his own identity. Before, and possibly after, the hero’s death, he finds himself standing before God and says: I have played many people in vain, and I want to be only one person – myself. This story accurately reflected my state of mind at the time, and I was eager to find my voice and to be a designer who could turn the graphic design into a work of fine art. I took some words from this short story and made up a story of my own about an artificial awakening that can only begin to have a sense of self – just as I realized then that being different is allowed. I made a sculptural little book, laser cut clear acrylic to simulate a circuit board, and used translucent plastic paper to show my computerized brush strokes – I added some analog computer glitch effect. This is also the first time I tried to use a book, the carrier of traditional graphic design, to express a story with my own emotions and opinions.

Later, after graduating with my undergraduate degree, I chose to go to the Art Center School of Design for further study. I took some hits at this school. This is a very, very strong applied design school. The world ranking is very good. The purpose of the school is to train students to meet the needs of businesses and markets. I tried not to forget what I really insisted on in such an environment, so I made a social project according to my own wishes. The project started with a book I was reading about people who evaporated from Japan. In Japan, these people are sometimes called Jouhatsu. It’s the Japanese word for “evaporation,” but it also refers to people who deliberately disappear into the air and continue to conceal their whereabouts, which can last for years or even decades. “I was tired of relationships. I just disappeared with a small suitcase,” said Sugimoto, 42, who used only his last name for this story. “I just got away with it,” he said. In his hometown, everyone knew him because of his family and his prominent local business, and they all expected Sugimoto to take over. But imposing this responsibility on him made him so miserable that he suddenly left town forever and no one knew where he was going. For whatever reason, they turn to companies that help them through the process. These operations, known as “night moving” services, help people evaporate in a covert way. They help those who want to hide from their lives and provide them with shelter in secret locations. I think this is a very worthwhile social issue – can escape really open a second life? At the time I was working on a project where I printed my own poster on a soft cloth and also made a book on the soft cloth to simulate a quick-to-make package. I need to use the softness of the cloth to set off the softness and fragility of the human soul, and I need to use the cloth to contrast the solidity and indifference of society and the city.

It is logical that the latest project I created recently also complied with a hot social issue – rethinking technology. I came up with the idea of ​​an art movement, Cyber ​​Dada, that advocates the integration of technology into people’s daily lives in absurd ways. It is my hope that this new movement will finally inspire people to think about technology and inspire new attitudes towards the relationship between technology, humanity, and the future. My starting point is two mainstream attitudes towards technology: technology equals light, and technology equals threat. Because a fixed attitude cannot bring new inspiration and develop society, I try to use “absurdity” as a key to opening the human imagination to a larger range and spectrum. How does our society evolve to the next stage? We need creativity and evolution. Speaking of evolution, we can imagine that after millions of years, swimming fish finally successfully evolved into birds. Such evolution, initially seen as absurd and incomprehensible, I can say with certainty that all evolutionary history has been led by “ridiculous” and incomprehensible precursors.

This is a long story of my resilience throughout my creative journey.

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

I hope my audience will recognize the artistry of graphic design, rather than simply discuss the commercial value brought by graphic design in the near future.

I truly believe graphic design has the power to reveal and reframe complex hidden socio-political information. I have my major projects all discussing and exploring social or political issues.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wenhang.info/homepage
• Instagram: @wen_yhang
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanwenhang/

Image Credits
Yanwen Hang