Jiashun Zhou
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Sep 26
- 5 min read
Jiashun Zhou is a Chinese artist based in Chicago whose work is shaped by movement, memory and place. He works primarily with textile processes, using weaving as a way to reflect on personal transitions and emotional shifts. His pieces are built from small visual impressions and fragments of daily life, often tied to architecture or interior spaces. The works carry a strong sense of material and rhythm, and often hold something quiet or unresolved. For Zhou, the act of making is closely connected to the passing of time and the idea of remembering through touch.
Q: When did weaving first start to feel like a way to keep memories?
A: It was during college that weaving began to feel like a way of preserving memories. At first, I was just experimenting with fibers, trying out different textures and techniques. But I soon realized that weaving made me slow down and notice details I would normally ignore. When I was about to leave the city where I had studied and lived, I felt a kind of sadness. After saying goodbye to friends, teachers, and classmates, I started thinking about how I could also say goodbye to the space and the city itself. It was the place where I grew up, where I found direction for my life, discovered what I truly love.
I took a lot of photos, but I knew they would probably just sit in my albums and I might never really look at them again. So instead, I chose to record those memories through weaving. By weaving them into my work, I could carry them with me, hang them in future rooms, and be reminded every day of why I got here. The way light entered the space, the small textures, even the emotions tied to memory — each thread felt like a marker of a moment. It was not just about capturing what I saw, but also about holding on to the subtle feelings of everyday life.
Over time, weaving became a way for me to have a conversation with the past, to turn fleeting experiences into something I could touch, revisit, and even share with others.
For me, weaving is a way to pay attention to things that often seem ordinary but are actually very important. It gives me the chance to slow down and hold on to what might otherwise be forgotten.
Q: Your work often deals with shifting spaces. How do you bring that sense of movement onto the loom?
A: I see space as something fluid, not fixed. Life is always changing, and our identities and experiences keep shifting with it. On the loom, every pass of the weft thread slightly changes the structure, so the piece grows like a living organism. I build up layers of pattern, color, and texture to create rhythm and movement, which reflect the flow of life.
In this way, weaving feels like life itself, always in motion, turning emotions and experiences into an abstract language of space. For me, weaving is meaningful not only in the final piece but also in the process. When I’m at the loom, I can only focus on a small section at a time, maybe ten centimeters or so, not the whole thing. Each detail gets woven in and then rolled away as I move forward. This reminds me of how I picture the hallway in my mind. I can clearly remember every detail, the color of the walls, the furniture, the way the light shifts. But it’s hard to hold all those details together at once. It feels like imagining a house.
I might know each brick and tile, but bringing them together as a complete form is difficult. Only when the fabric comes off the loom can I finally see the whole piece.
Q: Everyday sights like trees or sunrises inspire you. What makes a moment stand out enough to weave into your work?
A: I draw my ideas from the feelings I have from my memories. For me, inspiration comes from the things around me — the cities I've traveled to, the apartments I've lived in, the trees, the people, the houses, and even the sunrises or sunsets casting themselves on the streets I've passed, which I'm constantly drawing or taking photos of. But not all drawings go further. Over time, these drawings become an archive of memories. I choose the most captivating ones and bring them to life by weaving them into textiles. Each time I weave a fabric strand by strand, it feels like measuring the light, shadow, and details within space. Inch by inch, I become familiar with my space and gradually develop an interest in the weaving process. Spatial memory thus becomes a central theme in my work.
Q: Texture is central in your tapestries. What do you look for when building those layers?
A: Texture is really important in my tapestries. When I build layers, I think about how it feels and the emotions it can convey.
Soft, loose threads can feel fleeting while thicker or rougher ones add weight or tension. I like playing with contrasts, smooth versus rough, transparent versus opaque, so light moves through the fabric in different ways. For me, texture is another language on top of color and pattern. It can capture something you cannot see, like sunlight, a quiet weight, or the memory of someone passing by. When I weave, I ask myself what this layer should make people feel. Should they want to touch it or keep a little distance? Texture brings the work to life and lets memory be felt, not just seen.
Q: You call the loom a place of silence and freedom. What do you find there that you can’t outside the studio?
A: In our digital era, we practice quick photography, taking for granted what we see with our eyes. We look through filters and screens to translate our world. I want to be able to slow down this action of capturing, by weaving the space. I want to slow down through weaving, capturing space in my own way and letting that focused, immersive process become part of the work. The loom helps me explore the distance and dialogue between myself and the people, objects, and spaces I encounter in life. Over time, these encounters weave together into the piece itself. But there’s more to it. Even when the woven pieces occupy physical space, I know they are really reflections of the world, like a world in a mirror. We can see every detail and trust it exists, yet we can’t touch it. We never call that world fake. Weaving allows me to show this idea: the pieces remain flat and two-dimensional, yet they exist with an inherent, unbridgeable distance from us. That sense of distance reminds me of the experience of looking into a mirror.
Q: Your pieces hold both what’s visible and what’s hidden. What do you hope people sense when they look at them?
A: I hope when people look at my work, they can feel those spaces and moments that are both familiar and easily overlooked, places that carry our memories and emotions. No matter how often we change our living environments, losing old spaces or gaining new ones, we continue to store them in our perceptual world, shaped by our senses. These spaces give us strength, energy, and a sense of safety. In real life, we’re constantly told to do more, try harder, buy bigger houses, drive fancier cars, and even to act or be a certain way. Sometimes we start to blur — who are we really? What do we truly want? How do we live? Even if these spaces no longer exist in our daily lives, they still exist in another way. They’re not just memories or imagination, they exist in the three-dimensional world I aim to capture through weaving.
