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Explore this site with Rena's music!
BODY in universe
spacecraftRena Zhuang
00:00 / 02:33
Earth's ECHO
earth's tapeRena Zhuang
00:00 / 00:23
exp!odeRena Zhuang
00:00 / 01:12
INSPIRATION COLLECTION
I think I became something like a piece of colorful, shattered glass in 2022. It might have been the stress from school — and the fact that all of my best friends left Beijing, moving to U.S., Canada, Singapore... probably never coming back.
I'm lost. Feeling my desolated soul through arts.
Picture I took in 2022--evidence of my unstable mental state.
Translation:
Today, I felt that life was worth it.
In the quiet breath of autumn, I gazed at the sky —
where thick clouds folded upon one another,
layering soft greys into a hushed, endless depth.
I felt so free. So alive.
It was as if my whole body being drifted among the grains of air,
weightless, unbound —
and in that stillness,
I touched life itself —
life, life, life.
I still remember the time I said goodbye to my last best friend who was leaving. It was one of the most memorable days of my life. We went on the swings and took hilarious selfies together, listening to the great music we loved. The cold and gloomy weather, which mirrored the sadness between us, slowly turned into streams of warmth, something we both longed for (maybe we noticed the warmth between us would never go away). In that moment, I felt a strange and complex emotion that was completely new to me — a mix of loss and melancholy, nostalgia and hopefulness, something both poignant and lighthearted. I had never felt a feeling so vibrant until that day.
I’ve begun to love things that are poetic and desolate — broken, yet hopeful; shattered, yet full of color. This tension between opposites — not direct, but intertwined — carries a whimsical and profound weight to me.
I do feel this power within the breeze, the air particles, nature; because they're silent in front of me, I don't know what they're thinking of, so they're mysteriously poetic. The vibrant green makes them hopeful... yet broken too because I know they can easily fracture when humans play on them.
Photos I took in 2022
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That summer break, when I took photographs of the stars (June), I became so obsessed with it, the vast sky, and unknown lives...
I collected these feelings of longing, loneliness, and distancing through photography and music.
2023 is the year I got attracted to the galaxy, something so unknown and that makes me feel small. But it’s the mystery of the unknown that made me gain hope in finding my soul, my identity, and my belonging...
More photography sharing...
2024, I begin to observe the people, human, and the environment I'm living in.
Translation of text (left):
A taxi is a tiny universe of human life.
Passengers come and go, leaving traces of joy and sorrow, love and loss.
As the driver steers ahead, he carries countless stories with him —
crossing streets, and slipping quietly through the fabric of time.
Translation of text (right):
Sunlight spills on tattered toes
A child of war chants a hymn
The unmasked have no face
We live in oxygen-starved bottles
I mostly record my observations through words.
The inspiration of the (left) words might come from the same year when I watched "Taxi Driver" directed by Martin Scorsese... that kind of lonely, austere poetry steeped in urban desolation, yet pulsing with vivid, reckless color.
I began to focus on the people who flash through my everyday life—yet to whom I had never paid much attention to. I am also curious about violence, the psychology of lunacy, and urban repression, and I want to engage with and understand more about society, the people around me, and the environments I inhabit.
Photographs taken in 2024
2025 is ongoing
To be continued...
MY ARTWORKS
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