THE LANGUAGE AFTER ME
The Language After Me reconfigures the Five Constants of Confucian morality—ren, yi, li, zhi, xin—by reshaping their seal-script forms into grotesque, bodily structures. Using calligraphy ink on rice paper, the project explores how virtues that once stabilised social life have gradually become mechanisms of discipline, emotional suppression, and social conformity. By distorting the authoritative visual structure of calligraphy, the work exposes the tension between inherited moral language and contemporary psychological experience.
Drawing from personal memory, family history, and the pressures embedded in East Asian cultural upbringing, this series examines how Confucian ideals continue to shape identity through both tradition and digital-age surveillance. Each character mutates into eyes, limbs, organs, or animal forms—revealing how moral “virtues” can transform into anxiety, judgement, and internalised control. Through this visual re-reading of classical text, the project seeks not only critique but also reconciliation, opening a space for renewing tradition without being constrained by it.
About the Artist
Xinyu Yao is a Melbourne-based artist working with ink, calligraphy, and drawing. His practice investigates how cultural traditions, social expectation, and internalised discipline shape contemporary identity—particularly within East Asian contexts. Combining classical Chinese techniques with experimental distortion, their work transforms language into a psychological landscape where memory, pressure, and renewal intersect.
