Chinese artist turns COVID-19 tests into art to represent the pandemic life in China

Artist Siyuan Zhuji's artwork titled "Shengji" illustrates COVID-19 tests to bring awareness to the Coronavirus pandemic in China.

For most of China’s 1.4 billion people, regular COVID-19 tests have become a way of life. Siyuan Zhuji is trying to turn them into a work of art.

Since March, the 33-year-old multi-disciplinary artist from Jiangsu province has been filming his own nucleic acid tests with a small camera in his mouth.

His video clips show teeth and tongue and an approaching cotton bud. In some shots, a PPE-clad health worker can be seen through his teeth, administering the test.

“This is how our life is now, this period of time involves doing regular nucleic testing,” Zhuji told Reuters in an interview in his studio.

“It’s a way of life that’s unique to our time.”

Zhuji said the idea for the videos came to him when he began considering the vulnerability of the mouth, as an entry point for the virus and also for the repeated testing to find it.

He has recorded about 40 tests and says he will continue taking video with his thumb-sized camera as long as regular testing is required.