Mu Yu Ming

2000 — Present

Projects

Experimental film, performance, public art, social practice, and international collaboration projects.

Full CV →
2025
Social Practice

She Nian Fo

《舍念佛》 · Pa Pae Meditation Centre, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Social sculpture project rooted in Buddhist practice at Pa Pae meditation centre, Chiang Mai. A 44-page documentation of deep retreat, presence, and the practice of letting go — extending the international fieldwork of the OUR CHILDREN phase into a structured contemplative work.

2023 —
Performance·Ongoing

My Flesh

《俺的肉》 · Ongoing

Role performance art project built around two mirror characters: Meng Chunsheng and Chun Mengsheng — names that are exact reversals of each other. Meng Chunsheng carries the secular self: identity, responsibility, social rules. Chun Mengsheng carries the spiritual self: desire, dreams, unfiltered life. Through live performance, text, and social interaction, the two enact the contradictions inside a single person.

2023 —
Social Practice·Ongoing

OUR CHILDREN

《我们的孩子》 · Chiang Mai, Thailand

Public welfare art project focused on COVID-19 orphans in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Art assistance, psychological companionship, and free teaching — continuing Joseph Beuys' social sculpture concept through anthroposophy and the threefold social order. Conducted under the identity Hei Qiu'en.

2022 —
Installation·Ongoing

Five Hundred Arhats

《五百罗汉》 · Global — online premiere

A continuing large-scale project combining painting, sculpture, and performance — shaping portraits of contemporary all living beings. Interprets the integration of Buddhist spiritual practice and secular life. Global online premiere 2022, drawing audiences across continents. Includes the Declaration of Spiritual Soulmate and the Five Hundred Arhats Online broadcast series.

2017 — 2019
Social Practice

ChuangTzu Project

桩子计划 · Bajie, Anning, Yunnan, China

Large-scale rural public art project in Bajie, Anning, Yunnan. Built a rural art community, ChuangTzu Academy, and pastoral complex integrating art education, ecological agriculture, and cross-cultural exchange. Core principle: Serving the People. Covered by Chinese media including 中国文旅头条, 云南网, and 春城晚报.

2013 — 2022
Performance

Ten Years of Silence

十年静默 · Myanmar, China, Thailand, Hungary

A large-scale life performance work completed through ten years of deliberate public silence: no publications, no gallery exhibitions, no commercial or institutional art activity in the name of art. Within the silence: became a monk in Myanmar (2013); on-site works collected at MEDIAWAVE Festival, Hungary (2013); created Bridge at COART Asia Youth Art Festival, Lijiang (2014); completed three years of private seclusion (2017–2019). Completed 2022.

2011 —
Performance·Ongoing

Life as Game

《游戏人间》 · Ongoing — worldwide

A lifelong art project incorporating the whole of existence into art creation. Daily behavior, spiritual practice, and social engagement as creative medium. The core proposition: Life is Art. All subsequent projects exist within this frame.

2010
Performance

Give Myself Away for a Year

《将自己布施出去一年》 · Yunnan, China

One full year: no pay, no art-world activity. Social services, folk labor, public welfare. The body as the only medium. A direct test of whether art could be lived rather than made — and a dismantling of every separation between spiritual practice and secular life.

2009
Collaboration

Genealogy

《家谱》 · New Zealand & China

In official collaboration with the New Zealand Government. Oral history, image installation, and cross-cultural research connecting Eastern and Western family cultures — exploring how blood, identity, and belonging are expressed across national and cultural borders.

Official collaboration with the New Zealand Government

2008 —
Social Practice·Ongoing

Farmer Station

《农民站台》 · Rural Yunnan, China

Rural experimental art project proposing the concept of an Experimental Rural Bauhaus. Rooted in Yunnan villages, transforming rural spaces with art, building a community art education system. The project prompted his adoption of the art name Farmer Mu — a deliberate erasure of the elite-art label.

2005
Installation

An Illusory Character Made in China

《一个制造于中国的虚幻人物》 · Amsterdam, Netherlands

Solo exhibition during the Rijksakademie residency. Conceptual installations and performance documents reflecting on identity construction and the alienation of cultural symbols — the experience of being a Chinese artist making work in Europe.

2004
Collaboration

Himalaya

《喜马拉雅山》 · Multiple locations, France

In official collaboration with the French Government. Cross-regional installations and film exploring the symbiotic relationship between landscape, culture, and humanity across the Himalayan region. Exhibited across multiple locations in France.

Official collaboration with the French Government

2003 — 2005
Public Art

Jiang Hu

《江湖》 · Kunming & Lijiang, Yunnan, China

Large-scale public art project intervening in urban and rural spaces across Kunming and Lijiang. One of the early representative works of socially engaged public art in China. Formally exhibited in Kunming and Lijiang in 2005.

2003 —
Public Art·Ongoing

Lijiang Studio

丽江工作室 · Lijiang, Yunnan, China

Co-founded with American curator Jay Brown — one of Yunnan's first non-profit international artist residency platforms, connecting Yunnan and Tibet with Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The 2004 catalogue Lijiang China Studio/Residence was permanently collected by IberLibro and international art platforms. Included in the Rijksakademie's case studies of Chinese contemporary public art.

Co-founded with Jay Brown (American curator)

2003
Performance

20 Days

《二十天》 · Kunming, China — Oslo, Norway — Binic, France

20 days of uninterrupted on-site creation at Kunming Creative Warehouse, built around the concept of 20 Days, 20 Countries. Each day abstractly translated a different country's cultural core through body and local materials — without flags or landmarks, without preset outcomes. Later toured Oslo (2004) and Binic, France (2005).

2000
Film

Killing

《杀》 · Oslo, Norway — Asia Tour

Experimental short film selected for the Asian Experimental Art Film Festival and toured Norway and multiple Asian countries. The work focuses on the essence of life and the nature of violence — the first major completed work after graduating from the Norwegian Royal Academy of Fine Arts.