Editor’s Note:

Whether it is the traditional mentoring system or the studio education in art schools, it can be said that art education always emphasizes the demonstration and direct guidance of teachers in person. Due to the sudden COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 the situation has changed. As the reopening of the school in spring became impossible, tutors and students were forced to start an online course schema. Within the new trend, art education has been the focus of attention due to its particular nature. In order to cope with the impact of the pandemic, as well as online courses, the Central Academy of Fine Arts has launched the "Online CAFA" virtual exhibition hall for the first time for the graduating students. It intends to build an online platform to display students' academic achievements, which will attract more social participation and interest. The graduation exhibition is the first step for graduates to enter society. Whether it is from the graduation exhibition itself—a performance that reflects the hard work of the graduates over several years, or the new situation, new look and new form of the show this year, CAFA Online Graduation Season 2020 is bound to attract the public's attention.

While the physical exhibition can get the audiences’ feedback immediately, receive the information on the art market accurately and provide a platform for students to communicate with each other, online degree shows have rarely attempted this. Hence, it is hard to imagine its real effect and response. In this case, how do students view the online exhibition? Do they have any experience to learn from? How do they transform their thoughts to prepare for their graduation work? How is their mental health in terms of creating work from home? CAFA ART INFO has conducted an online interview to invite students from 12 departments at CAFA to discuss their creative state and psychology. In this session, we introduce six students from the School of Experimental Art, the School of Humanities, the School of Design, the School of Architecture, the School of Art Management and Education, and the School of City Design.

Interviewees丨Students from CAFA

Interviewer丨Yang Zhonghui/CAFA ART INFO

Interview Date丨2020.4.9-5.1

Translated by Emily Weimeng Zhou

Edited by Sue

CAFA ART INFO: Hello everyone, can you introduce your majors and departments?

Sun Ruoxi: I am a postgraduate student focusing on “public space and social sculpture” in the School of Experimental Art. From my undergraduate study to being a postgraduate, I have always studied here. Although the Experimental Art in CAFA has been in existence for 15 years, it is still very new compared to other art majors, and I think it will always remain "new" as it is a profession that is always facing the future.

Wen Tianjiao: I am a postgraduate student majoring in art theory from the School of Humanities. My research direction is cultural heritage and art archaeology. The School of Humanities has three major departments, namely, the Department of Art History, the Department of Cultural Heritage and the Department of Art Theory. The direction of cultural heritage and art archaeological studies in which I am a member belongs to the Department of Cultural Heritage. The Department of Cultural Heritage pays attention to research in visual art heritage and is inseparable from art history and art theory. After the cultivation of art history and art theory courses in my undergraduate period, I have started specialized research at the postgraduate level. Nowadays, the Department of Cultural Heritage is actively involved in the research of cross-cultural art heritage while it involves fine art archaeology, materials and intangible cultural heritage research.

Li Yichen: I am a postgraduate student from the School of City Design, focusing on the research direction of the smart city. This direction was established in 2016, and I am within the second group of postgraduates. Although the research direction of the smart city has not been established in CAFA for a long time, its domestic research can be traced back to 2008, while its international research started even earlier. Different from large companies, technology research and development institutions, the smart city research in the School of City Design focuses more on the use of the humanities background of CAFA, combining with art design and social culture, to carry out targeted creative activities for urban life. It relies on Chasing-Innovation(潛行科技) and large companies’ strategical guidance in making appropriate assumptions and logical constructions of future life scenarios. Through the humanities strength of art and design, it realizes its plan from a strategical combination of the urban development trend, city life improvement, research in city differences and other specific practices for comprehensive strategic integration.

The first picture is a hierarchical theoretical model for the construction of a smart city, the second picture is a training model for the current curriculum and the third picture is the current research network for the smart city. My graduate work is basically following the guidance of these models.

Zhang Ziqi: I am from the School of Architecture. The Bachelor of Architecture is a five-year program, so we usually stay at the school for a year longer than most of the other students in CAFA. The goal of the School of Architecture at CAFA is to train architects with artistic temperament. The graduation exhibition in the near future will test whether we have reached the training goals. Most students’ impression of the school should be its brightness at night. Yes, that's because on the top of Building No.7, the students from the Architecture School often stay up late to draw designs.

Xiao Ran: I am from the School of Art Management and Education. I am always asked what art management is. To put it simply, art management is the interdisciplinary subject of art and management. The particular nature of the subject determines a need to build a more comprehensive knowledge system. On the one hand, we need to understand the basic content of art, such as art history, an introduction to art and basic painting theory, etc.; on the other hand, we also need to master other disciplines as required at a practical level, such as management, economics, art laws, archives and communication science.

The undergraduate period of Art Management and Education primarily focuses on the direction of art management. After entering the junior year, it is divided into four studios, namely, art business management studio, art museum management studio, art exhibition curating management studio and art publishing and media studio. In my junior year, I chose to enter the studio of art publishing and media. The studio's learning content is related to the professional art media, art publishing and public relations in art institutions. The scope and objects of art management are relatively wide. From the division of the studios, we can see that many roles in the art world are connected to art management. All in all, this is a major that requires strong practical skills.

Group photo of the School of Art Management and Education BA 2016

Tutors and students from the School of Art Management and Education investigated the Centre Pompidou Paris.

Xiao Ran was interviewing the guest.

Song Meilin: I am a postgraduate student in the School of City Design, which is a product that CAFA actively adapts as social development. It directly serves the cultural and economic construction of China's urbanization and the continuous improvement of people's quality of life in the process of urban modernization. My major in both undergraduate and postgraduate is spacial display design, and my main research direction is space design for large-scale exhibition space such as museums, art museums and World Expos. Specifically, we use spatial language for information transmission and design in a planned and logical way, so that the viewers can effectively receive the designer's intention and the transmitted information.

CAFA ART INFO: Before the outbreak of the pandemic, did you previously imagine what your degree show would be like? What is your perception in terms of the graduation exhibition?

Zhang Ziqi: The annual graduation exhibition should be a milestone in our university career. Previous graduation exhibitions for undergraduates and postgraduates were held in CAFAM, exhibition halls in Building No. 7, and the white houses built in the playground. In the past few years, I have visited the graduation exhibitions of my predecessors and I used to be a volunteer at the previous graduation show. I did not expect that my graduation exhibition would be presented in this way. The graduation exhibition should be one of the most impressive milestones of our career before entering society. As a summary of our university life, I still expect my graduation exhibition can be an unforgettable memory.

View of CAFAM

Song Meilin: Before the pandemic, I believe everyone has imagined their own graduation exhibition. For me, the graduation exhibition is a part of the graduation ceremony. It does not only represent the achievements of my three-year study, but it also symbolizes that we are ready for society. It is full of our expectations for our future career.

Sun Ruoxi: I have been looking forward to the graduation exhibition since I started my postgraduate study, because the graduation exhibition is not only a summary of my three years of study but also a very good platform to show myself to society. In previous graduation exhibitions, the works of the School of Experimental Art was located in the Skylight Hall on the 3rd floor of CAFAM. The skylight and open space are very suitable for the presentation of experimental artworks. I am still very excited about being able to show my work in the CAFAM. After a long time in planning for the works in the on-site exhibition, I hope to show the best results in this space. However, the sudden epidemic changed the exhibition space. The style of the  exhibition in virtual space is a novel experience for me. At the same time, I also had a lot of new thoughts on how to present my work in a new "exhibition space".

Sun Ruoxi "A Dream-like Life - Night"

Li Yichen: Of course I have imagined it. In fact, I look forward to it very much. As a window, the graduation exhibition can show the possibility of a new path for smart city research within the art and design ideas for the public and other non-design professional colleagues. Through the exhibition, I also hope to show more people the research progress and outcomes from the Design School at CAFA under the new direction of the design pattern in recent years. In addition to conceiving of the graduation exhibition as a display window, we also look forward to seeing the works of graduates from different research directions at the graduation show. After all, this is the most exciting period of the year: a group of young people are about to graduate.

CAFA ART INFO: It is the first time that the School of Humanities will participate in the graduation exhibition. Tianjiao, what is your understanding of the graduation show?

Wen Tianjiao: Because the postgraduate students of the Humanities School did not participate in the graduation exhibition in the past, it was quite unexpected when the online exhibition notice was issued. Although we don't have to prepare for graduation exhibitions like students from other departments, we look forward to the graduation season every year and we expect to see the works of students from various schools in CAFA. What is interesting is that when I was a BA graduate of the School of Humanities three years ago, we also had a graduation exhibition. At that time, an exhibition wall brought together a summary of the theses of all students and the other areas were reserved for students who volunteered to display their dissertations. Due to the limited space, not every student has the space to display their thesis, but in addition to exhibitions, the annual "Youth Academic" seminar also provide us with opportunities to showcase and communicate with each other.

View of Undergraduate Graduation Exhibition of the Humanities School 2017

CAFA ART INFO: Xiao Ran, you are one of the first undergraduate graduates of the School of Art Management and Education. This year is also the first time that the undergraduates in your school would participate in the graduation exhibition. What do you think of it

Xiao Ran: Although we are the first group of undergraduates in the School of Art Management and Education, the previous postgraduate students of art management departments all had experience in graduation exhibitions. Therefore, we have also imagined what kind of display it will be when we graduate, but it was an offline display, which is expected to be in a physical space. In my understanding, the graduation exhibition is a platform for graduates to present their learning achievements in the academy and a summary of their four-year career. In fact, a piece of work or a graduation thesis reflects the way one looks at things and art. I hope to show the personality and characteristics more comprehensively in the graduation show, and present everyone's unique thinking on the world, rather than just a cold work or thesis structure

CAFA ART INFO: How do you view the online exhibition? Do you have any experience to learn from?

Li Yichen: When I first received the notice from the school, I was a bit caught off guard. This is indeed a challenge that I have never had before. It removes the physical subtlety and the scene of the space from the research. But later, I was thinking, if we put “premium production” and “l(fā)arge-scale shock” into the presentations that were originally prevalent in the public viewing of the exhibition in second place, where is the research nature of art colleges or design disciplines? If we think about it in this way, we’ll find the online exhibition becomes interesting. All shortcomings in research capabilities that were originally expected to be made up by production had to be dealt with directly, and all the energy originally invested in production and presentation could be redistributed. The new exhibition method requires a new ideology as a guide, and for the online exhibition derived from this epidemic, the past field investigations that relied on data or practice collation have become the sole criteria for research possibility from the online fragment information in the era of big data. The impact on design discipline is more obvious.

But I think the new graduation exhibition format is not the same as the online exhibition launched by regular large art museums, which merely uploads images, videos or transforms effective pictures of physical exhibitions on the internet. I do not think this is the whole of our graduation exhibition. What we need to do is to fully play to the characteristics of the online exhibition, to focus on the event that features within the dissemination of online displays. Using the carrier of online exhibitions, the network with unlimited possibilities of communication and connections maximizes the capacity for information within a display. With just a click, the viewer can get all the information about the work and the stories behind it as well as all the social thinking that a work can cause can be "exhibited" in this online exhibition.

Zhang Ziqi: I think the online graduation exhibition is a very good way to promote and save information. As far as architecture majors are concerned, on the websites of foreign universities, you can view the works of previous graduates in a chronological manner. If the CAFA can also store online exhibitions on the website, it can become a very professional database in the future. When I chatted with some older graduates about online exhibitions, they all expressed interest because visiting the graduation exhibition was finally free of time and space.

The impact of an online display on the School of Architecture may be relatively small. I think that displaying architectural drawings in the form of an online exhibition may show better results. Electronic displays can show more details than physical displays, so visitors can read architectural drawings more clearly. In the past, the graduation design exhibition was mainly based on a manual display model. You need more equipments if you want to present a video display. The online exhibition is convenient for us to present the design through a video which can be considered to enrich the display method. For graduation exhibitions, an online exhibition is a very innovative way of installing, which is very challenging as well. I do not have much experience to learn from. I mainly use digital methods to simulate offline exhibitions. The idea of setting up exhibitions is similar.

Sun Ruoxi: The online exhibition has its own advantages: it spreads faster and exchanges more information. This new display method is more in line with modern society's habit of acquiring information and it is also more adaptable to the frequency of development of the times. For those who cannot reach the exhibition site, no one can cause visual interference. The interference between the works becomes smaller and the viewing experience is more comfortable. The high dissemination of the online exhibition method is also what every graduate needs most. In the past years, students have to promote themselves, and there has been little publicity. This time, the academy has a series of publicity strategies to let more people see our works. It is a good thing for us.

When faced with a real work, the touch that the work itself brings to the viewer will be weakened or eliminated on the electronic screen, especially the performance work and the somatosensory interactive work, which is regretful. However, this online exhibition sets up a hyperlink to display multiple works of students, making up for the shortcomings that the offline exhibition can only display one work. I am very interested in this. For young artists who are about to graduate, it is a good opportunity to show themselves. Regarding the online exhibition mode, some of the new media related courses of experimental art are involved and there are many reference cases. In this graduation exhibition, I chose to combine video and pictures to show my work and use the most basic combination to ensure the stability of the presentation process.

Sun Ruoxi, "Silk 2020"

Song Meilin: The online exhibition is a product under the rapid development of the times. We should view the new forms positively and grasp the pulse of our era. It can break through geographical restrictions and promote graduates and graduation works more widely. In fact, in the past two years, the School of City Design has begun to experiment with online demonstrations. In 2018, the effect of the online record version of the graduation exhibition received an enthusiastic response. Of course, during the installation of the online exhibition, we encountered some problems with technology processing. Whether technology can meet the demands of graduates for the display of works and whether it can offer the audience an excellent audiovisual experience still needs to be tested in practice.

The online record version of the graduation exhibition 2018

CAFA ART INFO: How about Tianjiao and Xiao Ran? How do you view the online exhibition? How are you going to present your dissertations? Do you have any experience to refer to?

Wen Tianjiao: The online exhibition is a helpless move under the epidemic. It is also a way to give each student a fair exhibition opportunity and space in this special situation. It is also very rare for the students in the School of Humanities. As our graduation achievements are dissertations, most of us will choose to present in panels online with illustrations and texts. We might add the videos of field visits and other visual materials. In a word, it is not difficult in terms of operation. However, what we need to present is an article, many meticulous deductions and related materials cannot be fully delivered. Compared with other physical works, the text-based panels are less attractive to the audience.

My thesis research on the subject of “Eight Scenes of Yanjing,” which elaborates from “text,” “image,” and “scene.” I am still working on my thesis because it includes a lot of content. I think it is hard to present all my thoughts and conclusion on the panel, so I decided to only present my first chapter. When the framework of the thesis was initially determined, each part was guided by a relevant question. In this exhibition, I plan to lay out questions. At the same time, the first chapter involves the three dynasties, namely, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Showing related content, I would retain the questions of the next two chapters as suspense. After the notice of the exhibition, our tutors shared some photos of the exhibition site once held by CAFAM. There are also different forms of exhibition wall layouts in the photos, which can be used as a reference.

Xiao Ran: The graduation exhibition this year is very special. The online version is forced by the pandemic situation, but it is also an inevitable trend. This trend has existed long before the pandemic and many first-class art institutions are developing online exhibitions. Especially as the technology matures, how to make online exhibitions more convenient and more interesting, various art institutions are constantly trying to cope with these questions while combining their characteristics. The advent of the pandemic has made people pay more attention to this topic, and has also involved more people in this challenge. This is a direction for the development of art exhibitions in the future. As students of art management, we are among them.

I have discussed a lot with my classmates when we prepared for the degree show. Regarding the presentation of the thesis, we will create a structure chart of our dissertations, which would be presented with relevant texts and images. By doing so, each exhibition area is expected to be a narrative. Besides, personally, I hope to leave several open questions to viewers to receive their feedback and opinions. I hope to show the whole process of the thesis from thinking to shaping to a great extent and make the audience interested in the topic we are discussing.

In terms of online exhibitions, there are actually a lot of experience we can learn from, such as the Palace Museum, the British Museum and Google Open Gallery, etc. They all have been practicing online exhibitions for a time and inspire us a lot. In addition, the experience of physical exhibitions also helps us to examine the possibility of an online exhibition. For us, virtual curating is a learning process. However, we are not familiar with some professional software, which will discount some exhibition ideas.

Xiao Ran, Exhibition Plan Draft

CAFA ART INFO: When did you start to prepare your graduation work? To what extent does the pandemic and online show influence your graduation creation?

Song Meilin: My graduation creation began in the second half of the third grade. I mainly discuss the fusion spaces with strong adaptability. The boundary between different functional spaces, which are blurred and spontaneously overlapping in the context of the exponential explosion of social variables. The adaptive fusion space may become one of the current and future trends of the social space form changes. I will use the fusion of commercial and cultural exhibition spaces as an example to discuss the possibility and impact of its evolution and integration and study its design method.

Song Meilin, "Fusion Museum - Presentation of the Life Museum Concept Design"

Sun Ruoxi: There is no specific time for my work to start. The work for the graduation exhibition has been accumulated for a long time before the final plan is finalized. The original plan of my work is for the audience to enter the completely black space I built to observe the visual experience brought about by the three moving self-illuminating bodies (with weak light sources). Because of the pandemic, many parts that need to be processed by the factory have remained stagnant. However, relying on the virtual exhibition hall this time, I actually have a larger creative space and at the same time, I have obtained a freer presentation. Many ideas that cannot be realized in the physical space can be easily achieved in the virtual space.

This time my creation "Three Kinds of Motion in Space" (tentative name) is mainly displayed in the form of a three-dimensional model. I placed a black cube in the 3D art museum. Each side of the cube has a black hole drawn inward. The connection point is set in the center of the black hole. The viewer will jump to the video file after clicking the black hole. In the video, there are three self-illuminating spheres with regular geometric movements. When you are watching it, you need to adjust the phone screen to the brightest setting. In addition to this work, participating in the graduation exhibition, there are several new works that will be presented to the audience in the form of hyperlinks on my personal page.

Li Yichen: Although the pandemic breaks my original plan of domestic investigation regarding the development of smart city and potential application of crisis design in the urban life, it provides me with a new direction. This online exhibition made me rethink the concept of graduation design and the qualities that should be presented as a qualified graduate. I devoted all my energy to the work of "exhibiting": archive research, intelligence collection and image sorting, as well as graphic transformation.

The digital products have changed viewers’ reading habits, which makes online exhibitions and physical exhibitions have a completely different display emphasis. The physical exhibition can leave the audience more imagination space to awaken their own reflections, while the online exhibition would rely more on the information that the creator wants to deliver. The creator may not be responsible for the dissemination effect brought about by the offline exhibition, but the online exhibition can trace all the information to the root. In this case, I must be more careful about whether my concept output and image are correct and accurate. To a certain extent, it also assesses a researcher's attitude towards academic rigor and responsibility for his or her academic ideas. However, using the form of an online exhibition can fully display the additional information that the original offline space cannot expand. If the information source of the offline exhibition is the limited space of the exhibition hall, the online exhibition can expand the source space of the information to the entire internet. On the one hand, it increases the viewer's understanding of the work. The limited state of “white cube” is opened up because the online exhibition originally lacked the concept of physical space.

Zhang Ziqi: My graduation creation started from the last semester of the fifth year. Our studio mainly focuses on the study and research of rural construction-related topics and it is fortunate for me to have participated in the China Rural Exhibition in cooperation with OMA. After the exhibition-related tasks were over, supervisors organized the set-up of graduation topics, and we sorted out the results of the exhibition and used them in the early stage of graduation design. The formal design began on February 10th. Although we are trapped at home because of the epidemic, everything is still proceeding in an orderly manner as planned.

The most challenging part is base investigation. In the early stage of architectural design, we need to go to the design base for an on-site investigation. This year, the design site was in Tianchi, Tianshan, Xinjiang. Our studio was originally scheduled to go to the field for an investigation after the Spring Festival. Due to the pandemic, we had to cancel the original plan and change it to research materials. So we can only rely on aerial photographs, a CAD data of the venue and some live photos provided by the tutor to imagine the environment of Tianchi. Also, there is no particularly good model conditions at home. In the early stage of creation, it is more difficult to figure out the building volume through the solid model. Of course, there are some advantages to working at home, such as having a quiet space for thinking and concentration.

Zhang Ziqi, Home-made Base Model

CAFA ART INFO: How about Tianjiao and Xiaoran? When did you start your dissertations? How does the epidemic affect your thesis writing?

Wen Tianjiao: We set up our thesis topic last January and we fixed our overall framework of the thesis at that time. The pandemic mainly influences me in three aspects. First of all, I left some books at school and I cannot access the library, so I spent more time and energy getting resources for the dissertation. Secondly, it restricted the communication between my supervisor and me. Luckily, we hold the discussion session every Friday as usual. Lastly, I cannot complete the onsite investigation. My dissertation refers to the “Eight Scenes of Yanjing” and urban lifestyles in Beijing. It seems I cannot complete the investigation before the graduation.

Xiao Ran: Although the actual writing started after the first half of the fourth year, my graduation thesis has been brewing for a long time. The idea of the thesis is gradually formed in the undergraduate study process, especially after entering the studio. I have the opportunity to develop more practical work and take the initiative to look at phenomena in the art world from the perspective of an art management practitioner. During the process, there were many questions and things that I wanted to dig into. After discussing with my supervisor, I finally selected an entry point as the topic of the graduation thesis.

The positive affect on my writing is that I have more overall time to write. According to the previous arrangement, this stage actually requires us to have an internship, so the time may be fragmented. The negative impact is that there is no way to check materials in libraries or archives, and the materials needed for the thesis can only be obtained from the internet resource. The social research part of the thesis, because of the epidemic situation, could not be achieved.

Xiao Ran, Studio Discussion before the Pandemic

CAFA ART INFO: During the period of creating work at home, how is your mental state? Do you have anything to worry about? And how do you resolve the issues?

Sun Ruoxi: When I was not sure about the exhibition method at the beginning, I was still a little worried. After all, my work was an installation. In the case of on-site exhibition, the production time was relatively tight and the factory resumption date was uncertain. Once the production could not be completed on time, the graduation exhibition would not be successful. In order to avoid this situation, I prepared several alternative works at the same time. During this period, I have been focusing on my graduation pieces without any special feelings. The only thing I want is to complete the work and present it to the public. The most worrying thing now is the health of the family. In the past, it might take a month for me to make a phone call to the family, but now every day when I am free, I will send a WeChat message or make a phone call to ask if my family is safe.

Sun Ruoxi, A Performative Video in 2017

Sun Ruoxi's Working Photo During the Pandmic

Wen Tianjiao: I paid attention to the everyday situation of the pandemic when it just occurred. I was also worried about my parents’ health conditions. There will inevitably be some anxiety as I am in the graduation grade. I worried about my future study or work at the very beginning. Afterwards, I began to slowly adjust my mental attitude to focus on my thesis that needed to be completed and tried to avoid some unsettling emotions. Up to now, although it is still impossible to restart school, everything about graduation is gradually carried out. In addition to learning, occasionally, I also create handicrafts, plant plants, or go out in places with a few people as a daily adjustment. I believe everything will be back on track, we will soon return to our position and start to be busy.

Wen Tianjiao, A Glance of My Home

Zhang Ziqi: During the pandemic, I attended the online courses and group discussion as usual. Also, there is no break in terms of my supervisor’s guidance. Meanwhile, thanks to the form of online discussions, everyone’s presentation skill has improved after practice. The online meetings also allow us to see each other’s design, which inspires our thinking.

I was anxious at the very beginning, but I gradually got used to staying at home. The only problem is that I left the computer at school and the laptop at home is not as good for me to make creations. I hope we can be allowed to return to school in the last stage of my work. I am worried about how we are going to graduate this year.

Zhang Ziqi, Screenshot of Online Presentation

Xiao Ran: During the writing process, I was a little bit worried about my thesis as I cannot go to the library for research. On the one hand, I was worried that if my discussion is too one-sided. On the other hand, I was anxious about my writing progress. However, the pandemic also makes me to reflect on the change of production and thinking in society. I believe there will be a huge revolution upcoming.

I am keeping in touch with my classmates and we often encourage each other. They give me a lot of support and advice, whether it is on learning or life. In addition, I like to cook. Cooking makes me feel that everything is under control. Making food is also a healing process for me.

Li Yichen: While working at home, I am easily distracted which is a problem faced by all graduates this year. The uncertainty about online exhibitions and the final presentation of works is also a pressure. The original college life always had timely communication between teachers and classmates to help us solve the fear of uncertainty. However, working at home makes normal social invalidated. Luckily, the online courses and supervision can help us to communicate with each other. Besides the idea-exchanges with tutors and classmates, we also need to explain our creations to our parents, which helps us to consider how our works can be accessed and understood by the general audience from different disciplines. It is also a good opportunity to accompany parents and listen to their advice.

In addition to the worry about uncertainty of creation, I am also concerned about losing self-control and willpower. To solve this issue, I made a detailed schedule to complete my creation, study and work without any external supervision. If I cannot be distracted, I would imitate the academic environment of working at school or make a cup of coffee for a rest.

Song Meilin: During the pandemic, my mental health was actually very peaceful. But every day I saw all kinds of news about the pandemic this made me worry. All I could do was to meet the requirements of the country and the academy by staying at home, wearing masks and making donations under the organization of the CAFA Party Committee. I also saw that some friends sent medical supplies to Wuhan, students painted many anti-epidemic paintings and designed works within their own professions to encourage the country. Now that the domestic epidemic situation has been basically controlled, I hope that foreign countries will overcome the difficulties as soon as possible.

CAFA ART INFO: Thanks for all your time. We hope you have a bright future!