“The Way of Chopsticks” is a series that husband-and-wife Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen have been working on for over ten years. Their installations and sculpture art, along with their early video art, established them as collaborative artists early in their marriage. Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen have been involved in and witnessed the entire history of contemporary art in China over the past three decades. While their works each have their own aesthetic frameworks, they all focus on the interplay between personal emotions, memories, and destinies within the rapidly changing political and economic environment, and their relationship with society. In their art, they are both a unified entity and individuals. This essay primarily focuses on how they demonstrate their independence within their collaborative work as a married couple and how they separate their personal lives from their roles as artists.

Many of their inspirations come from everyday life, making their artworks very intriguing, such as building houses with biscuits, creating sculptures from used clothes, and using chopsticks as artistic forms. It is evident that Song and Yin place great importance on ordinary life and family relationships. What captures their attention and stimulates their imagination is the rapid changes in Chinese society, including the disappearance of streets and neighborhoods, shifts in interpersonal relationships, and the emergence of new lifestyles, aesthetic tastes, and values driven by consumerism. During this period, a significant theme in their art is the concept of family, which provides them with a shared platform for collaboration as a married couple. Their art explores the relationship and connection between art and life, and how their collaborative art can inspire their individual artistic expressions. It raises questions about whether their artistic endeavors mutually influence or separate from each other.

In my conversation with Song Dong, he shared that marriage is a source of inspiration in his creative works. In the marital status of most ordinary people, I have been left with a negative impression, as most of what I have seen involves divorce or unhappiness. In China, most people are reluctant to divorce because it would subject them to more social scrutiny. Therefore, what many people learn is tolerance, maintaining a formal public relationship while feeling like strangers in private. However, in their series “Chopsticks,” the collaboration between Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen seems to present a utopian scenario, especially given challenging social pressures within China.

The sense of oppression brought about by East Asian marriages is often something Western culture cannot fully understand because divorce is more accepted in the West. In East Asia, internal conflicts are often kept within the family. This can be understood to some extent through the American TV show Beef. The beautiful emotions expressed through collaboration, such as in their artwork, are often enviable. Personally, I feel this way because, even now, I find it challenging to collaborate with my partner. Chopsticks are two objects that need to come together to function, much like two individuals becoming a couple, supporting each other and interacting. It is a simple and everyday tool used as a metaphor for their relationship, just like these two individuals having to deal with each other every day. Song Dong mentioned that both he and Yin are artists, so collaboration is impossible. Hence, they thought of using chopsticks, as each person can make one, and they can come together for use. To avoid arguments, they kept their creations a secret until the day of the exhibition.

When Song Dong mentioned wanting to create chopsticks more impressive than Yin Xiuzhen’s, I sensed a typical masculine competitiveness. Why does it have to be better than Yin’s? The result was that Yin Xiuzhen made a box-shaped pair of chopsticks and directly took away the ones Song Dong had made.

“Chopsticks Way” refers to the collaborative approach and life attitude of Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen as artist couple. They chose to use chopsticks as a symbol, metaphorically representing their relationship, collaboration, and interaction through this everyday tool. Chopsticks, as a daily utensil, require two pieces to be used together, reflecting the mutual support and interaction inherent in a marital relationship. Through creating chopsticks, they symbolically express the collaborative nature of their relationship. “Chopsticks Way” showcases the fusion of art and life. They transform everyday objects into art pieces, incorporating elements from their daily lives into their creations, expressing the intertwining of art and life.

Yin Xiuzhen said in the interview that “We each have to be concerned with the other when we collaborate so there is some guessing going on but it’s also independent. The essence of it is trust, as well as equality and independence” (Yin Xiuzhen 2020). This attitude reflects a desire to preserve independence and mystery within collaboration.  “Chopsticks Way” is not just a collaborative project for the artist couple but also a way of expressing their unique understanding of collaboration, life, and art.

In fact, many other artist couples also create collaborative works. Pixy Liao’s photographic practice closely aligns with the theme of her ongoing series titled “Experimental Relationship.” In this body of work, she explores and alters the power dynamics within a conventional relationship with her long-term boyfriend. One notable piece involves them mutually supporting each other to form the Chinese character “人” (pronounced “rén”), which translates to “human” in English. This visual representation parallels the concept of chopsticks, where the collaboration is essential – lacking one element renders the whole incomplete. In both cases, there is a symbolic and visual representation of mutual support and interdependence between the partners.

Another example is Marina Abramović and her ex-boyfriend, Ulay, who created a notable work involving a bow and arrow that adds another layer to the theme of collaborative relationships. In this performance piece titled Rest Energy, both artists stand facing each other, each holding one end of a taut bow with an arrow pointed at Marina’s heart. The concept revolves around the idea that the arrow’s potential energy is released only when both individuals exert opposing forces on the bowstring. This work not only symbolizes the physical tension between the two artists but also metaphorically represents the necessity of mutual effort in a relationship. Like the collaborative nature seen in the chopsticks and Pixy Liao’s series “Experimental Relationship,” the bow and arrow piece by Abramović and Ulay emphasizes the interdependence and shared responsibility essential for the functioning and success of a partnership.

In conclusion, the exploration of artistic collaborations within relationships, as exemplified by Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen’s “Chopsticks Way,” Pixy Liao’s “Experimental Relationship,” and Marina Abramović and Ulay’s bow and arrow performance, unveils rich insights into the dynamics of human connections. These artists, each in their unique way, utilize artistic mediums to symbolize and express the complexities of relationships. The chopsticks metaphor, the formation of the Chinese character “人,” and the tension in the bow and arrow piece all serve as visual representations of mutual support, interdependence, and the shared effort required for a relationship to thrive. These creative endeavors showcase how art becomes a powerful lens through which the intricacies of love, collaboration, and shared experiences can be examined and communicated.