Sun Guaiwu
怪悟
Sun Guaiwu is an artist based in China, currently teaching at the School of Future Design, Beijing Normal University. His practice spans a wide range of media and focuses on their interweaving, particularly the integration of installations, sculptures, and props as fictional artifacts within moving image. He is also a design researcher, approaching design as an ethical declaration and as a means of generating speculative thought and narrative beyond the logic of consumer culture.
His work is structured around three interwoven conditions: bloodline, the masculine condition, and the haunted absence. Bloodline refers to a system of inherited belonging and genealogical continuity. The masculine condition describes an outward-expanding mode of existence driven by the fear of collapse. The haunted absence refers to an irreparable rupture that continually returns after loss, reactivated through memory, fiction, and ritual as a form of unstable presence. Since 2023, he has been developing the video series Unfilial Son, which emerges from these concerns. The first installment, Refractory, has been completed, while the second, The Never Game of Human Life, is currently in progress.
In 2017, he founded the design collective Mentionso, which engages with social and cultural issues in China through radical design, design activism, speculative design, critical design, and design comedy, aiming to generate alternative narratives and imaginaries for future societies.
怪悟是一位居住在中国的艺术家，目前任教于北京师范大学未来设计学院。其实践几乎涵盖所有主要媒介，并关注彼此间的交织，特别是影像中装置、雕塑和道具等人造物的融合。同时，他也是一名设计研究者，将设计视为一种伦理宣言，以及在消费主义逻辑之外生成思想实验与叙事的方式。他的创作建立在三种彼此交织的结构之上：血缘、男性状态与缺失体验。血缘构成一种基于继承与谱系延续的关系系统；男性状态指向一种由对崩塌的恐惧所驱动、不断向外扩张的生存姿态；缺失体验则指向一种无法被修复的裂隙，它在失落之后持续回返，并通过记忆、虚构与仪式，以不稳定的方式被重新激活。自2023年起，他开始创作影像系列《不肖子》，该系列由上述问题意识延伸而来。第一部《不应期》已完成，第二部《人生未径游戏》正在推进中。2017年，他创立设计团体“明想社”，通过设计行动主义、思辨设计、批判设计与设计喜剧等方式介入中国社会与文化议题，尝试生成面向未来社会的替代性叙事与想象。
Education
PhD Contemporary Art Practice
Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
MA Design Interactions
Royal College of Art, London
BE Facility Agricultural Science and Engineering/ BE Industrial Design
Hohai University, Nanjing
Selected Exhibitions
In recent years, I have come to recognize that the deeper driving force behind my practice is rooted in two interwoven structures: bloodline and what I refer to as the “male condition.”
In the Chinese context, bloodline is highly complex. It forms the foundation of traditional social structures, shaping a self-centered network organized through kinship relations. This network is ultimately elevated into a sacred genealogy, carrying imaginaries of continuity and stability. Individuals are embedded within it from birth, their positions determining corresponding rights and obligations. However, under the impact of modernization, this structure has undergone continuous transformation, placing individuals in ongoing tension between identity, responsibility, and meaning.
The “male condition” does not refer to men as such, but to a mode of existence that transforms an inner fear of death into a restless, outward-expanding drive. Through the pursuit of success and the transformation of others, it attempts to construct an illusion capable of resisting collapse. Oscillating between the desire for strength and the rejection of vulnerability, this condition ultimately tends toward breakdown or disillusionment. At the intersection of these two structures, my work often turns to another question: when relationships, identities, ideals, and even the future itself become unsustainable, how do we reconnect with what has already been lost yet remains impossible to let go of—through fiction, memory, and ritual?
Since 2023, I have been developing the Unfilial Son series, which continues to ask: as unfilial sons of the world, where can we ultimately go? The first work, Refractory, has been completed, while the second, The Never Game of Human Life, is currently in progress.
Methodologically, I focus on the interplay between different media, particularly by introducing installations, sculptures, and props—what I call “fictional artifacts”—into moving images. These elements function as structural redundancies, disrupting narrative coherence and displacing stable interpretation, drawing the viewer into a perceptual state that is diffuse and unsettled.
近年来，我逐渐意识到，驱动我实践的更深层动力根植于两种彼此交织的结构：血缘以及我所称的“男性状态”。血缘在中国语境中非常复杂，它是传统社会结构的基础，塑造了以自我为中心、根据亲缘关系而铺展开的网络。最终升华成一种神圣谱系，并在某种程度上承载着关于延续与稳定的想象。个体自出生起便被嵌入其中，其位置规定了相应的权利与义务。然而在现代化进程中，这一结构不断发生异化，使个体在身份、责任与意义之间持续处于张力之中。
“男性状态”并非指向男性，而是一种将内在对死亡的深刻恐惧，转化为一种永不安宁的、向外扩张的生命形态。通过不断追逐成功与改造他者，来建立能够抵抗坍塌的幻觉。在渴望强大与拒绝脆弱之间摇摆，这种姿态终究走向崩塌或幻灭。在这两种结构的交汇之处，我的作品经常指向另一件事：当关系、身份、理想乃至未来本身变得不可持续时，人们如何通过虚构、记忆与仪式，重新与那些已经失去却仍无法放弃的存在建立联系。
自 2023 年起，我策划并展开《不肖子》系列，持续追问人类作为世界的不肖子，我们到底能够走向何方？第一部《不应期》已完成，第二部《人类未径游戏》正在推进中。
在方法上，我关注不同媒介之间的交织，尤其是在影像中引入装置、雕塑与道具等“虚构人造物”。这些元素作为一种冗余结构介入影像，干扰既有叙事，使观看脱离稳定的理解路径，进入一种模糊与游移的感知状态。