Between 15 and 28 May 2022, and in the framework of the residential program of the RUK network, Delavski dom Trbovlje hosts the multidisciplinary artist Qian Xu. She is not new to Trbovlje, as she presented herself at last year's Speculum Artium with the project My Garden – an interactive installation that projected the created and edited visual images of the garden onto the bed's surface. Visitors were able to lie down on the bed and communicate with the projection and sounds of the surroundings with body movements, thus experiencing an intimate and mimetic experience of wandering and resting in their garden. The artist drew her inspiration from personal experiences during the Covid-19 lockdown. You can find detailed information, photos, and videos about the work in question at this link.

At last year's Speculum Artium festival, the project My Garden received excellent feedback, so DDT invited her to a two-week residency once more. She is developing a new project for this year's Speculum Artium festival. She designed the concept of an interactive video installation, focused on the movement of the visitors' bodies, and is in the phase of experimentation with various solutions and effects. Due to the strong influence of mining culture on the city of Trbovlje and DDT, she decided to play with the concept of coaldust and stardust – as a result; the final artwork will be covered in dust particles.

In the residency framework, Qian Xu also prepared a presentation at the Trbovlje Secondary Technical and Vocational School, where she talked about the creative applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and presented generative digital art and her creation. Furthermore, during her residency, Qian Xu will participate in the R.o.R Festival, where DDTlab will also present its innovative projects of Creative Robotics.

Qian Xu (1990, China) is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Germany. She studied industrial design and software engineering with a focus on interaction design at Zhejiang University, China. In 2021, she completed her degree at Interface Cultures (MA). Through her artistic practice, she experiments with creating novel and poetic interactions and combines cultural elements into her artworks, which have been exhibited in international art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Austria (2016, 2021) and Speculum Artium, Slovenia (2021).

Webpage: https://xuqian.de/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xuqian_art/