Q&A with Mu Lan
Mu Lan is a multidisciplinary artist and writer whose work explores vulnerability, transformation, and the dissolution of the human body. Through ceramics, installation, performance, and text, they construct fragmented narratives that blend mythology, queerness, and speculative fiction.
Briefly describe your thesis project. What themes are you exploring, and in what mediums/with what materials?
My thesis project is a multimedia installation with primarily ceramic objects. When I was conceptualizing my thesis project, I found myself compelled to start from writing, using text as the basis of worldbuilding. My story is set in a post-apocalyptic world. A mysterious set of events wiped out all men, and all human lives left were transformed and reborn into other living creatures on Earth. The main character, a moth, came to consciousness, faced her former lover, who became a goddess-like orchid, and pondered her own existence. The narrative is, in its essence, a queer love story after an end and before a beginning.
What do you hope someone feels when they experience your work?
I hope the viewers can experience time in a different way, and to engage in the thought experiment of having a genderless and bodiless experience.
Mu Lan in her studio. (Photo: Caitlin Custer)
Did you always know this would be your final project? When or how did you figure it out?
I had no idea what my thesis project was going to be until the end of last semester. My ideas usually come to me when I am doing random things other than art. The framework and background of the story came to me first, then I started forming the work in my mind.
What was your path to becoming an artist like?
I’ve been interested in art since I was little but was satisfied to keep it as a hobby. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit when I started to take art seriously. I was cooped up in my dorm and spent several hours a day drawing and then took my first printmaking class online. I realized art is more important to me than I thought, so I kept doing printmaking, changed my major to studio art and came to WashU for an MFA program straight away.
Are there any faculty, courses, making spaces, or other WashU resources that have had a big impact on you?
Heather Bennett and her Art + Feminism course is the absolute best.
