Romantic with a heart of glass

Between last September and November, an improved version of a piece related to the silk workers, In Her Own Body — Mei, was part of a group exhibition in Norway called Still in Love. The exhibition's organizers said that Xie had "turned her serendipitous encounter with these female silk workers into elegant glass bubbles that encapsulate the hand gestures used in reeling silk from cocoons".

Xie explains that the form and color of the glass bubbles represented the shape of the body and the innate strength of women.

She used three steel wire ropes to make it appear to be floating in the air, allowing visitors to feel the tension between the rope and the glass bubbles, each of which weighs about 5 kilograms. The ropes, art and the surrounding space became intertwined as a whole, Xie adds.

Working in factories has gradually become a way of creation, and her pieces are often about connections built between people.

She has explored other materials besides glass. One piece that resulted, Spring, is being displayed at an exhibition of the luxury brand Bvlgari between Thursday and Feb 16 in Shanghai. The piece — two intertwined ring structures which form an infinity symbol from certain angles — was inspired by the appearance of a flexible gas pipe. At each end, there is a piece of blown glass that hangs down or curves slightly upward, which resembles a flower.

"This latest piece is important to me, as it takes what I want to express a step further: the concept of force and the interaction of forces," Xie says.

She does not view her career as an artist as a job, but as a way of life. She enjoys residency programs — every year she participates in at least one or two — that take her to new places and keep her inspired. She also enjoys the nomadic lifestyle, and is always ready to go, with her daily necessities packed in her car. Her next artist-in-residence program is in May in Longquan, Zhejiang province, where she will try her hand at ceramics.

"Just like my art, I want to go with the flow of life and see what it brings," Xie says.