In his work, Jianan Ning explores personal experiences of migration and questions of cultural identity and recognition. He is particularly interested in the fragile relationship between nature and the rapidly growing economy and society in East Asia. In “Receding Rivers and Mountains,” he combines handcrafted porcelain with traditional Chinese landscape painting, both of which are quintessential historical representations of Chinese culture. From this, he creates broken red-and-white caution tape as a warning symbol to modern urban society.

He replaces the colored sections of the tape with hand-painted fragmentary landscape paintings as a metaphor for the historical connection between nature and the sociopolitical development of East Asia. The caution tape becomes a call to respect nature and ancient traditions and to protect them from further destruction.