Editor’s note: Themed on “Chasing the Light”, 2025 CAFA Graduation Season kicked off at CAFA Art Museum in early summer. Surrounded by diversified creations, visitors may find that some of graduates chose performance to burst their inner impulses, some chose to interact with the space to build their visual tension, and some got inspired from traditions to bring about more contemporary creative appearances. More young creators are paying their attention to drawing materials from the life around them, trying to capture the multiple realities of emotions, experiences and thoughts...

In these cases, the collisions between individual experience and the external world, between new and old media, as well as between virtual life and real life have repeatedly inspired their creativity that may not be perfect but fresh. In the poster of 2025 CAFA Graduation Season, a symbolic apple is outlined in a constantly changing form under the illumination of light. CAFA graduates who believe in “light”, follow the light in their hearts and present their initial explorations of “what art is” that have been honed for several years at their degree shows. Featuring interviews with graduates, “CAFA Graduates Who Believe in ‘Light’”, invites graduates to talk about their creative stories from a more microscopic and in-depth perspective, and we would like to share and convey the “light” in the hearts of young people through these candid and vivid narrations.

Oaths

By Yang Wanzhi, School of Experimental Art and Sci-Tech Art

My work “Oaths” derived from two aspects: on the one hand, my feeling of daily life, and on the other hand, the return of the creative media. There are always many unexpected things in life, and how to face them is a topic that I care about, and this naturally extends to my creation. The so-called unexpected means that we have an opinion on this matter in advance, but the truth is beyond our opinion, in the face of such an unplanned situation, do we sail with the wind or stick to the principle? It provides me with a very valuable drive in creation, the power of confronting the contradiction between the desire for certainty and the uncertain reality.

Exhibition View of Oaths

A mushroom cloud represent turmoil, restlessness, change, uncertainty, and moment. Fingerprints run through the ancient signatures, the authorization of modern nuclear buttons and the signing of various contracts and agreements, and here the fingerprint refer to personal identity, commitment, certainty, and eternity.

Exhibition View of Oaths

Originally, I wanted to construct an artistic conception, discussing serious topics in a poetic and relaxed way. What a  mushroom cloud describes is not limited to the explosion of a nuclear bomb, but it can be expanded to more layers of imagination, and oaths are not limited to a specific individual, but they point to more layers of commitment.

 The Creative Process of Oaths

The 10-meter-long scroll is composed of ink painting and video projection. The plain and extremely light mushroom cloud slowly rises, and the dynamic red fingerprint gradually spreads with the mushroom cloud explosion, slowly becoming larger, light as smoke, leisurely as a cloud, and the process repeats again. Together, these two parts point to the problems of time scales and value judgments.

Installation View of Oaths

The existential proposition that my work ultimately points to stems from my focus on the dilemma of modernity in my work, and my work is more concerned with the question of how people live in contemporary society. The vigorous oaths may drift away gently like smoke, is everything really like a cloud of smoke? This question is about eternity and transience, to be or not to be, when we face every choice, Shakespeare’s problem will eventually become our own problem...In the era of information explosion, we know too much and want too much, and those who can give up are courageous people and free people.

Exhibition View of Oaths

Humans rely on certainty to build a sense of security, and Russell argues that it is not knowledge that people crave, but certainty. The pursuit of certainty may damage more possibility, and creation is about innovation, which requires mistakes, being out of control and going beyond the dilemma of solidification. Over the years that I have studied at CAFA, I gradually realized that facing the unknown requires a more open mind and greater courage, and I also gradually felt that the meaning of life is to live, seeing the sunshine, feeling the rain, eating well, and sleeping well, these constitute the meaning of life. This is what I have realized and want to learn, which enlightens my life and creation.

Portrait of Yang Wangzhi

Text and Image Courtesy of Yang Wanzhi, edited (EN) by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.