Zorg’s Visual Poetry: Recomposing Identity in a World of Hybridity
In the contemporary art world filled with debates about cultural hybridity and identity politics, providing a unique and poetic intervention isn’t easy. The works of Zorg (Yifan Jing), an artist who studied at Goldsmiths, University of London and is currently based in London, offers a new way of intervention. His work not only presents the stories themselves but also invites people to deeply question the very construction of these stories. However, this poetic reorganisation also raises a crucial question, which has become the core of Zorg's practice: what does it mean to create a new visual language in a world full of fragmented symbols?
Clover 2024
His recent exhibition at a gallery in Hackney almost entirely embodies this approach to creation and art practice. Here, it presents a visual project derived from an in-depth study of a community in East London. This project was inspired by Zorg's living experiences in the area. People from Asian, Arab, African, and European backgrounds live side by side in this district. The intertwining of multiple cultures and spiritual traditions becomes a true reflection of the area. Here, groups from different cultural backgrounds bring together diverse religious beliefs and unique cultural narratives. This deep engagement both shapes Zorg's unique creative approach and profoundly shaped his artistic practice.
As Relational Aesthetics (1998) suggests, art is never created in isolation; it is always embedded in networks of social interaction and interpersonal exchange. Therefore, what Zorg discovers in the community is not simply described as fixed symbols but is transformed into an image archive containing multiple layers of information, including Buddhist totems, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Islamic geometric patterns, and Christian icons. These crafts appear in shop windows, murals, and handicrafts. Interestingly, they display a unique symbolic system generated by years of cultural exchange. From another perspective, they further attest to visual interweaving and coexistence.
However, the process of observing the area itself is quite complex. In his creation, Zorg must occupy a dual role as both participant and observer, placing him in a blurred position between insider and outsider. It is this very duality that inevitably brings his practice into contact with the ethical issues of artistic ethnography. Artists need to consider how to strike a balance between understanding and appropriation, respect and reconstruction when presenting the culture of others. Zorg does not attempt to resolve this contradiction. On the contrary, he transforms this identity and ethical tension into the driving force of his work, allowing the critical nature and urgency of art to coexist at the visual level.
The 'visual sampling' proposed by Zorg constitutes a core aspect of his artistic practice. As mentioned earlier, he does not aim to restore the authenticity of any single culture; rather, he establishes an independent system of meaning reconstruction through visual means by reweaving diverse images. This approach is most typically embodied in the Clover project. In conjunction with Homi Bhabha's theory, it is viewed as 'a third space of enunciation.' In this space, cultural meanings are continuously negotiated and regenerated, rather than being fixed and defined.
Migration Plan 2023 Drawing
However, this practice of sampling and recombination also raises a pressing question: when artists praise cultural hybridity through borrowing and collage, at what point does this process begin to reduce the original themes to decontextualized decorative symbols? In addressing this question, Zorg’s work does not attempt to directly confront this contradiction; instead, it consciously unfolds within this highly tense and generative liminal space. Compared to Zorg's earlier work Migration Plan (2023), his response to this issue in the Clover project can be better understood. In the project documenting elephant migration, the themes are presented in a more direct and observational manner. By focusing on non-human subjects, the ethical complexity cultural representation is kept at a certain distance.
However, in the Clover project, he delves directly into this tension-filled core. The central work of the project is an oil painting built with wooden and window-like structures. Some view this painting as serving a somewhat complex and architecturally resonant function. Interestingly, it embodies a state of hybridity in its material form. Therefore, it can be seen as a layered narrative space rather than a simple flat collage. Symbols from Buddhism, Egypt, and Christianity coexist in a dynamic, and sometimes even tense, state of negotiation. It can be observed that this very structure may itself be expressing resistance to simplification. At the same time, it continuously emphasizes that true coexistence requires recognition of depth, friction, and history.
The subsequent set of four illustrations—Dianbo, Dongcha, Guankan, and Ganying—extends this exploratory issue from the scale of community and architecture to the intimate and psychological level. They then reveal, from multiple perspectives, the complex impact of this blended reality on individual lives.
In Dianbo, Zorg proposes a powerful visual inquiry into how immigrants resist symbolic flattening. Here, simplified figures are juxtaposed with richly patterned clothing. Flowers and vine motifs from diverse traditions converge in this context. This visual dialectic between external anonymity and internal cultural richness highlights the phenomenology of cultural identity within a transnational context. However, this detailed layering also raises the question of how an aesthetic synthesis can convey a complex inner world without oversimplifying its distinctiveness. In Dongcha this intervention, which restates identity through the juxtaposition of symbols, is further developed. In this work, the resolute expressions of the characters and gestures imbued with Eastern spiritual connotations are skillfully intertwined with subtle references to ancient Egyptian mythology. Obviously, this deliberate stratification of symbols constructs a complex field of intertextuality. Therefore, in this context, prayers, rituals, and cultural memory transcend their original singular origins. Overall, Zorg’s visual sampling raises important questions about the ethics of cross-traditional borrowing. Yet it is precisely this tension that gives the work its conceptual urgency.
Left: Dianbo 2025 Oil Painting; Right: Dongcha 2025 Oil Painting
Based on the exploration of fragmented identities mentioned above, Guangan introduces a spatial tension, using heavy arches to separate the contemplative foreground from the dynamic background. The latter reveals woven patterns and a depiction of a galloping horse reminiscent of a mural, creating a dialectical interaction between serenity and chaotic movement. This visual narrative suggests that historical accounts are poured out and reorganized within a new allegorical context. The cross-cultural decorative elements, such as architectural textures reminiscent of Central Asian and Islamic styles, also resonate with the color tones of the West. At the same time, this echoes the stylistic blending visible in Dianbo, but here they actively reincorporate culture and memory onto the architectural surface, memory onto architectural surfaces, complicating any singular interpretation of belonging. Ultimately, Ganying takes this deconstruction of identity even further. In sharp contrast to the composite complexity of Guangan, this piece depicts an abstract human face, tightly cropped to fill half of the canvas. Through its extensive use of negative space and muted monochromatic palette, it conveys a striking sense of anonymity, removing any trace of specific cultural identity. This compositional strategy implies that identity itself is distilled into an almost symbolic essence. However, this directly provokes reflection on how authenticity and symbolic efficacy continually shift under a cross-cultural gaze in a post-migratory context. Yet, one cannot help but wonder whether, in the pursuit of this universality, the work might risk losing some of the nuanced lived experiences of the specific cultural diasporas it initially sought to address.
Left: Ganying 2025 Oil Painting; Right: Guankan 2025 Oil Painting
Through the four works mentioned above, Zorg's layering and collage style undoubtedly reflects the visual texture of multicultural London. However, it also raises a persistent question in the viewer's mind: when an artist recomposes fragmented symbols, does the resulting artwork truly capture the polyphonic depth of human experience, or does it risk aestheticizing it into a mere visual game? His practice of visual sampling directly provokes important ethical questions regarding cross-traditional borrowing. From another perspective, however, this tension constitutes the contemporary urgency of the works. It compels viewers to move beyond a position of passive observation and actively engage in the process of meaning-making.
Overall, in the ongoing debates about cultural hybridity and identity politics in the contemporary world, Zorg's work does not actually provide a definitive solution. However, his work seems to offer a generative theoretical space for rethinking what constitutes visual consensus within this multicultural context. His art makes the act of viewing no longer singular, but more complex. He attempts to invite viewers into a more layered perceptual process by using the 'window' as a central structure, subtly prompting them to reflect on their own positions. Thus, in a world often marked by division, his work suggests that the potential for coexistence does not lie in seeking simple answers, but in our willingness to navigate these beautiful, complex, and sometimes unsettling visual dialogues.