Wenqian Tan is a young creative artist based in Milan experimenting with art direction. Their rolodex of works continues to evolve after prancing into a rabbit hole of psychology books in college, which then converge with these fascist aesthetics that captivate in a cunning, Maggritean way. Coming from different topics ranging from the traumas of parentification, authoritative power imbalances, to the ins and outs of human liberties, they materialize quandaries of their personal life into thought provoking imagery.

As young creatives we’re prone to asking questions, how do you interpret human inadequacies in order to produce art?

I don't think I’m in the position to talk about human inadequacies. All I can say is that many of my work revolves around social issues and psychology because these are the areas that interest me the most at the moment. I got into psychology when I was in college, reading psychology books is like looking at human behavior through a microscope, which inspires me a lot.

Are there any hidden references that inspired the disparities you underscored in the ‘Cold is Warm’ project?

I think I was just trying to visualize and integrate the ambivalence that I've been experiencing. The opposition is obvious and visually explicit. It might grab people's attention first, but most importantly, what I was actually trying to find is the similarities between those things that appear to be completely opposite. And to somehow rethink a lot of things that are seemingly ingrained. For example, specifically in this project, the similarity between domination and obedience. The two sides seem to be opposites, but I think they reached an agreement to some extent. They agree on the same basic understanding of relationships, which is domination and obedience. Sadly, for many people who have been instilled and asked to be obedient from an early age, equality in relationships is not even in their dictionary, because that’s how they have been raised. They are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. Once the power structure is determined, the submissive lower-ranking individual will start to follow orders. Ironically, in some cases, if the power structure is stable enough, to a point that the submissive one will start to rationalize, idealize or even glorify his unfree situation, for example, they think they are selfless when their basic rights get violated. Power structures are fluid. The same person can be submissive in some relationships but dominant in some other relationships according to status or authority, so obedience and domination can actually be found in the same person. These thoughts on domination and obedience also led me to start reflecting on the connections between many other seemingly contradictory things in different situations.

How did your new project 'Parentification’ come about? What do you want to convey? What does the full process behind this project look like?

Parentification is when the roles between parents and children get reversed, so the child have to take care of their parents in the age that they are the one who actually need to be taking care of. Family issues are always something I want to discuss. I read a lot of case studies of so many different types of family issues. In some cases, the pain that children have to endure is unimaginable for normal people, and under this kind of suffering, it is a natural choice to die, but people are born with an instinct called hope which helps them to see the stars in the sky, even in the gutter.

Teddy bears are emblems of good-luck, purity and child fascinations, what do you think of conveying when you decide to incorporate them?

I’m quite into serious subjects or aesthetics, such as psychology, the aesthetics of communism and fascism. But paradoxically, I’m also very into warm and playful things such as plush animals and ‘cute culture’. These are almost the two most and equally important elements for me. For this reason, I've been experiencing ambivalence a lot and it obviously has influenced my photographic language as well.

What have you been working on? Tell us something that’s excited you recently.

I’ve been practicing shoot in film recently, it’s something new for me, and hopefully, I’ll shoot it all in film for the next project that I’m preparing. And I’ve also been working on a small installation recently, and I’ll probably do a series of photo of it. Let’s see.