In Nan Ke Gallery's new exhibition “rooted, yet flowing”, 00 Zhang's works are dispersed in an old wooden house, creating a sharp, cold and futuristic metallic luster. These installations, games, and interactive experiences are like a fluid world, constructing a personal and universal psychological field through the language of futurism, and serving as an entry point for the viewer to explore the connection between the self and the world.
Opening view of rooted, yet flowing, December 28, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery, Photographed by Tiger Chen
The Prototype 0037 RAID 0 in the center of the exhibition hall is like a bionic being lying on a hospital bed, with luminous pipes simulating the flow of blood in its “body”, with a slow but continuous rhythm, like the faint ups and downs of breathing. It is not only a future creature, but also a metaphor for the state of life: how can an individual live in the dual pull of the virtual and the real? In Prototype0037 DISK , the sculptural casing intertwined with mechanical and organic materials seems to be a record of some kind of life fragments - partly mapped from reality, partly derived from the unimagined future. Each node reflects an “unfinished” form of life, neither finished nor fully realized.
Installation view of rooted, yet flowing, December 28, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Nan Ke Gallery, Shanghai © Courtesy Nan Ke Gallery, Photographed by Runxin.
00 Zhang describes her work as “world-building in the form of self-portraits”, a mapping of her individual experience, and a delicate capture of inner conflicts and complex emotions. This form reaches another climax in Inversion Prototype 0033 : this huge installation is dominated by circulating liquids, which flow and exchange in a bionic structure, creating a dynamic life force. This cycle is like an endless reincarnation, constantly simulating the theme of migration and change, a metaphor for the fluidity of culture and the ambiguity of identity.
00 Zhang
Inversion Prototype 0033, 2024
304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel, silver coated resin
187h x 163w x 134d cm
© Courtesy of the artist
In Prelude to the Prototype Series DLC2022 , 00 Zhang uses games as a language to lead the viewer through multiple spaces, both real and virtual. From the real landscape of East London to the surreal world of utopia, the interactive nature of the game allows the viewer's choices to be integrated into the creation itself. The paths in the screen are virtualized mental maps that connect real memories with fictional landscapes, constituting a “heterotopia” where the virtual and the real are superimposed. The narrative is not linear, but rather multi-layered and intertwined through the player's actions, allowing the viewer to re-examine their relationship with the world in this virtual space.
00 Zhang
Prototype Series DLC2022, 2022
Digital art
4 channel film
© Courtesy of the artist
Time and space do not exist in isolation in 00 Zhang's creations, but are intertwined to form an inherent tension. This tension exists not only in the flow of individuals and cultures, but also in the confrontation between the virtual and the real - it is both cutting and fusion; both conflict and connection. In such a fluid world, identity is no longer a single definition, but a self-navigation in multi-dimensional time and space.
00 Zhang
Prototype0037 RAID 0, 2024
Silver plated resin, SLA, 304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel
104h x 70w x 77d cm2+1AP
© Courtesy of the artist
As psychogeography reveals, every space carries an individual's unique perception, and in 00 Zhang's works, this perception becomes a bridge between the virtual and the real. Her creations make people realize that when boundaries are blurred, when the meaning of culture and identity is redefined, creation becomes a path for us to traverse through these mists, exploring the possibilities of the future in the gap between the virtual and the real.
Text by Roxane Fu
January 22, 2025
