We were lucky to catch up with Yingyu Zhu recently and have shared our conversation below.

Yingyu, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

There was a very grand funeral culture where I grew up. When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to ghost festivals, when people paraded in the streets at night performing as monsters and ghosts, and during the day, they took off their ghost costumes, burned things and offered sacrifices to their deceased relatives. For a long time this visual pressure and impression of the monster parade at night impressed me, and I had a lot of dreams about it but I never knew why they performed and staged these events the way they did.

It wasn’t until 2022, when my grandfather died of cancer, after I’d watched him many times in pain on his hospital bed, unable to move freely or even eat, that I began to understand the meaning of these customs— people try to construct a colorful afterlife world through ghosts and monsters, a world where people and ghosts can come and communicate easily, to make up for the regrets they could not satisfy before they died. In life, people are very limited and their sufferings are robust. Only their spirits are unfettered, free, even after death which are still believed to exist for a long time.

My MFA thesis film‘Night Market ’is also created with the intention of creating a colorful world for children who have lost their right to play or their lives because of illness. It is a color pencil-textured hand-drawn 2D animation, The main character is a little girl suffering from cancer, guided by butterflies. She escaped from the hospital window to freely enjoy the city and meet monster friends at night. I tried to focus on their ignored spirit world.Even though it wasn’t a perfect presentation, the project still meant a lot to me.There’s a saying ‘Zhuang Zhou dreams butterfly’ in Chinese which means that Zhuangzi couldn’t tell if he had become a butterfly in his dream or if a butterfly had become Zhuangzi in his dream. Life changes a lot, like a butterfly in dreams, but spiritual freedom is eternal.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always been very fond of reading comics and movies, primary school when I tried to imitate the students into a comic book story, but also opened a dress-up game, to the students characters dress up. I was a bit of an introvert, so for the first time I felt that drawing could be a way to connect with other people, even to say hello. I thought painting was the best job in the world. I really wanted to paint!

So when I applied for the university, I chose the direction of professional art, into the design and animation major. However, in the university, I went through a long period of blank.At this stage, I still do not know what the ultimate purpose of my arts, I still like the elements of fantasy, but I have shifted the focus of my work more to getting inspiration from daily life and nature.

The beauty of nature provides a joyful experience, while the drudgery of everyday life provides another experience worth thinking about. I combines elements from the East with American design influences, allowing me to create flexible, imaginative shapes, with a digital style in hand-drawn texture.I also try to draw specific animals, bright colors, cute things .All of this allowed me to create more refreshing works.

I hope people to find my design and animation comforting when they see it. What attracts me most about art is its nature of communication.Life is not always happy, thus this kind of comforting is important to me. I find immense joy in this creative journey and aspire to continue evolving as an independent immense artist. Ultimately, I hope my work can be seen by more people, and make people feel that they are not lonely.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The problem is more like a difficult that I’ve struggled, and I hope that other will try to get around it. There is a time, I worried too much about a perfect projects. I imagined what this project should look like, what elements should be put here and there, and how to create works gracefully. But I always feel that I am not ready to create. I always feel that my skills are not good enough and my experience is not rich enough. I worry that the things I create are too obvious and make people laugh. I am always preparing. But there was no ‘ready’ moment. Only the present moment. I took a lot of time to accept it. So If you want something, just do it.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

There is a shorts called Sunday lunch.It’s a prints style animation by Celine Devaux, describing a portrait of a family facing their gay son.I love the form of combining imaginative picture and bitter realistic voice and was surprised at its excellent presentation of family relationship. It made me started to add more personal thoughts into animation creations, and explore nonlinear storytelling ways.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yingyuzhu.portfolio.site/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/not_yingyu?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ==
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yingyu-zhu-169390222

Image Credits
yingyu zhu