Interview- Weiyi Chen

I researched some artists' works on human-pet relationships, which supported my view that humans are dominant in the human-pet relationship.

I interviewed Weiyi Chen, a former student at Chelsea Textile Design, whose work Caged is spun and dyed with pet hair.

Ran: Is the main thrust of your project to criticize the cruel treatment of pets in contemporary society?

Weiyi: It is mainly to question and criticize the behavior of human beings who occupy complete dominance in the human-pet relationship and who abuse animals at will under the premise that the law is unable to protect them (the behavior of not providing pets with a basic and comfortable environment for survival or abandonment can be called animal cruelty), and then I was focusing my research on those abandoned dogs, and I mainly visited a lot of shelters in China during the fieldwork.

Ran: Did you use pet dog or cat fur for your project?

Weiyi: Yes, I collected these hairs from a pet shop.

Ran: So why did you choose to color it with herbs?

Weiyi: The reason for using Chinese dye is that in my GD project, I used Indian dye and during my MA course, I was thinking of exploring Chinese natural dyes. I found out that many of the dyes in Chinese natural dyes are made directly from the herbs in the Compendium of Materia Medica, which is the same source of the dyes, and I found that the dog's hair is quite compatible with the dyes after testing, so I used it.

From Strays to Strands: Transforming Pet Fur into Sustainable Textiles

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