ChingKe Lin
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
ChingKe Lin is a Taiwanese artist who works with bamboo. He spent ten years as an industrial designer, then went to the bamboo mountains of Zhushan and trained under master craftsmen for two years, learning by watching and repetition. His installations are large enough to walk through. One of them, Clouds of Smoke, comes from an old lantern-weaving technique, its spiral openings repeated over and over until the structure moves like smoke. He has built pieces for Taiwanese temples and shown his work in New York, Japan, and Europe.
Q: You worked as an industrial designer for ten years before turning to bamboo. What drew you to it?
A: Before working with bamboo, I spent ten years in industrial design, where I learned to think through systems, proportions, production, and function. Over time, however, I became less interested in creating objects that answered practical needs. I wanted a material that could challenge my decisions and bring uncertainty back into the process. Bamboo offered that. It is strong yet responsive, precise yet never entirely predictable. Its fibers, tension, and natural curves require adjustment, so making becomes a form of listening rather than control. That relationship changed how I understood design. Instead of forcing a predetermined shape, I began allowing structure to emerge through repeated negotiation with the material. Bamboo led me away from solving fixed problems and toward asking questions: how can form carry memory, how can craft enter contemporary space, and how can an object remain alive through the traces of time, labor, and human touch within its form?
Q: What did those two years learning from master craftsmen in the bamboo mountains teach you?
A: My two years in Zhushan changed how I understood learning and craftsmanship. Much of what I learned was not explained, but absorbed through observation, repetition, and correction. The craftsmen taught me that reliable technique comes from familiarity with every stage of the process. From selecting and splitting bamboo to preparing strips and weaving, each step affects the final structure and quality of a work. This experience also showed me that tradition is not a form to be copied, but a way of thinking refined over time. Only after understanding its methods and underlying logic could I begin to develop my own direction. The training gave me a technical foundation while also teaching me how to transform inherited knowledge into a contemporary language. It continues to shape my practice today, allowing me to preserve the experience, discipline, and values carried through handwork while creating forms that belong to my own time.
Q: "Clouds of Smoke" grew out of an old lantern-weaving technique. How did it come about?
A: "Clouds of Smoke" originates from the traditional lun-kou weaving technique commonly used in bamboo lantern making. Bamboo strips are layered at the same angle to form a spiral opening that appears as a many-pointed star from the outside. I retained this structural principle and expanded it by arranging multiple woven openings in sequence, transforming a single closing detail into a form that develops continuously through space. By varying their direction, height, and spacing, the repeated units create an undulating structure that gradually moves beyond the symmetry and fixed order of a functional object. Although the work appears fluid and spontaneous, it is supported by a precise internal weaving system. Through repetition, accumulation, and controlled variation, the traditional technique becomes a circling spatial rhythm.
The structure remains disciplined, yet its overall movement suggests something less fixed: smoke gathering, drifting, and dispersing as it slowly takes shape through the surrounding open air.
Q: What changes when someone can actually walk inside one of your installations?
A: When viewers enter one of my installations, the work is no longer experienced from a single point of view. Its scale, openings, and changing sightlines require the body to move, pause, and adjust. As people walk through it, they encounter different relationships between structure, light, and distance. This physical movement becomes part of how the work is understood. I am interested in creating situations where perception unfolds gradually rather than being received all at once. The installation does not simply surround the viewer; it changes with each position and reveals different aspects over time.
By moving through the work, viewers become aware of their own pace, direction, and presence within the space. For me, this kind of encounter gives the work another dimension: it becomes less about observing an object and more about experiencing how form can organize attention, movement, and awareness in real time through a direct bodily experience.
Q: You've spoken about art as a kind of spiritual vessel. How does bamboo hold something like faith?
A: For me, faith does not need to appear as a recognizable symbol. It can be present in the way a work is made, repeated, and cared for over time. Bamboo carries this meaning through the labor of weaving: each strip is placed by hand, and each action depends on the one before it. The final form is therefore built from patience, concentration, and trust in a process that cannot be rushed. I see the artwork as a vessel for these invisible efforts. What viewers encounter is not only a physical structure, but also the time, intention, and human presence accumulated within it.
In this sense, bamboo holds faith because it records acts of commitment. It transforms an abstract belief into something tangible, while still leaving room for viewers to connect it with their own memories, values, and inner lives in a personal and open way through their own lived experience.
Q: Where do you want to take the work next?
A: My next step is to expand the work beyond the familiar categories of bamboo craft and place it in closer dialogue with architecture, landscape, and public space. I am interested in how each site can shape the work, not only through scale, but through its history, climate, movement, and patterns of use. Rather than repeating a fixed visual style, I want each project to develop from the conditions of its location. At the same time, I hope to continue refining a contemporary language rooted in handwork without being defined by tradition alone. This means working across different scales, collaborating with other disciplines, and testing new structural possibilities. Ultimately, I want the work to remain specific to its material and place while still communicating across cultures. The goal is not simply to make bamboo more visible, but to show how it can contribute meaningfully to contemporary art and shared environments today.
