In his work, Jianan Ning deals with 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 ‘Mountains in the old days’, he combines handmade porcelain with traditional Chinese landscape painting, as typical historical representatives of Chinese culture. He uses these to create broken red and white barrier strips as a warning symbol to modern urban society.

He replaces the coloured parts of the tape with fragmentary landscape paintings as a metaphor for the historical connection between nature and the socio-political development of East Asia. The barrier tape becomes an appeal to respect nature and ancient traditions and to protect them from further destruction.