NONGZAO Practice • Nest

Constraints are not shackles. They are an invitation to learn when to yield to nature.

Original Text | Xu Gang • NONGZAO Field Notes

Along the Simeng River, groves of Cizhu bamboo stretch across the landscape. We walked into one of them and began an experiment rooted in place, with no predetermined form in mind. We would not transplant the bamboo or cut down any living stalks. The roots would remain connected to the soil. Instead, we would weave directly among the bamboo as it continued to grow.

The Simeng River runs through Qingshen County in Sichuan, where the Min River passes through the county town and the humid climate favours the growth of Cizhu. Bamboo weaving has a long history here, and Qingshen bamboo weaving has been recognised as a national-level intangible cultural heritage. Generations of local craftspeople have lived and worked alongside bamboo, developing a deep knowledge of how to select the stalks, split them into strips and weave them. With its widely spaced nodes, long internodes and resilient fibres, Cizhu is one of the principal materials used in the region’s weaving traditions.

Yet the way of life that sustained this craft is changing. As market competition has intensified, bamboo-woven goods that once found buyers overseas have gradually lost their competitive edge. There is still a market for elaborate, high-end craftwork, but everyday bamboo products, which take considerable time and effort to make, are increasingly difficult to produce at a worthwhile return. Fewer people are willing to devote themselves to the craft over the long term.

In August 2019, we travelled to Qingshen to explore another way of understanding bamboo weaving.

NONGZAO · Nest began with a question: if bamboo is no longer treated as a material waiting to be harvested and processed, what other forms might weaving take?

Liu Qianxing was a local bamboo-weaving craftsman I had sought out after making several enquiries. He lived in Changchi Village, Qingshen. He had entered the trade at the age of seven and was skilled in flat weaving, three-dimensional weaving and a range of hybrid techniques. After China’s reform and opening-up, many young people left the bamboo-weaving trade. Some turned to fishing; others went away to find work. Liu, however, never abandoned his craft. “Whatever line of work you’re in, learn to love it,” he told me. The decline of the market had not stopped him from experimenting. He remained open to new ideas, refining his techniques through repeated adjustments.

Lu Jiquan, another craftsman, was seventy-one and had more than fifty years of experience in rural bamboo weaving. During the days we worked together, he would begin in the early morning and carry on until seven in the evening. After a simple lunch, he would return to work, his hands rarely still.

When I first began developing Nest, I had no specific function in mind, nor had I drawn a complete form in advance. Villagers who saw us working among the bamboo looked on with curiosity and some bewilderment. Master Lu, however, quickly understood what we were trying to do. To him, it was an expression of love for life and for the essential nature of things.

Liu Qianxing already had his own daily responsibilities. To help with the project, he would return to his small workshop after finishing his usual work and carry on weaving, sometimes until midnight. I repeatedly tried to discuss payment with him, but he would brush the subject aside, saying simply, “We’re friends.” He kept telling me that as long as I could explain my ideas clearly, he would do his best to realise them. If it did not work the first time, we would try again. If it failed a second time, we would keep adjusting.

Meeting craftspeople like these was a privilege. Working alongside them made me realise that whether a project succeeds depends on more than the designer’s initial idea. It also depends on how the people involved understand it and what they bring to it. Local craft traditions are not simply a collection of techniques waiting to be put to use. Once a craftsperson enters the creative process, years of accumulated experience and the ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances inevitably shape the final work.

From the outset, Nest was guided by a few clear constraints: we would not disturb the roots, cut down living bamboo or remove the plants from the environment in which they were growing.

These conditions changed the entire creative process.

In conventional bamboo weaving, the bamboo is first harvested, then split, dried and shaved into strips suitable for weaving. Once the material has been prepared, the weaver can select, cut and adjust it as needed.

Working with living bamboo is different. The plants remain rooted in the ground, continuing to absorb water, put out shoots and grow leaves. You cannot move them into a more convenient position, nor force them into the curve you have imagined. Instead, you have to learn their resilience through careful observation, discover how far they can bend, recognise where they can be guided and know which positions must be left as they are.

It becomes a dialogue between the maker and the material. You apply gentle pressure; the bamboo yields along its natural course. Through this back-and-forth, you begin to find a balance in which people and plants can accommodate one another.

We could not decide on an ideal form first and then demand that the bamboo conform to it. The direction, spacing, thickness and condition of each stalk became part of the reality we had to work with. Every crossing and every turn had to be adjusted on site. Weaving was no longer simply a matter of organising material into a form. It became a process of discovering what kind of relationship could develop between people and plants.

By the standards of conventional weaving, this approach introduced considerable constraints. Progress depended on the conditions we encountered in the grove. But I did not see these limitations as obstacles to making.

A designer cannot exercise complete control over a material. The only way forward is to observe, guide and adjust until a suitable approach emerges.

Through Nest, I gradually came to understand that a constraint does not necessarily mean a shortcoming. When a preconceived form cannot be achieved directly, the method itself must change. Rather than insisting on an ideal shape, it can be more important to understand the material in front of us and accept the changes it brings.

Nest was never designed around a predetermined function. We did not rush to assign it a specific use. Instead, we wanted its form to emerge gradually from the conditions of the bamboo grove itself.

A nest is an everyday word. It suggests curling up, settling in and finding shelter. It also evokes a space that need not be entirely enclosed. For this project, Nest was first and foremost a starting point for exploration, not a conclusion we needed to prove.

The longer I spent in the grove, the more clearly I felt the difference between this approach and conventional making. We were not bringing the material into a prepared working environment. We were taking the work into the place where the bamboo was already growing. The terrain, the light, the distances between stalks and the particular condition of each plant all contributed to the form as it developed.

The outcome was never determined entirely by human intention. We could guide the process, but we could not decide every result. We could create a form that held together for a time, but we could not guarantee that it would remain unchanged. The living bamboo would continue to grow, and the structure we had woven might change with it. The work was not simply an object, completed and ready for display. It was connected to a process of growth that was still unfolding.

This approach does not make it better than traditional bamboo weaving. It offers another possibility, and another question: if we stop treating nature as material to be controlled, might design discover new forms through a different kind of relationship?

Making Nest also led me to reconsider what we mean by material.

We tend to think of materials as substances taken from somewhere, processed and then put to use. But in this grove, the Cizhu was not something waiting to be removed. It was part of a changing environment, connected to the soil, water, sunlight and other forms of life around it. It was both the subject of our weaving and a living plant that continued to grow. By choosing not to cut it down or transplant it, we could not separate it entirely from the environment in which it belonged. Making, in turn, became more than the processing of a material. It became an intervention in an existing relationship.

One day, while we were working among the bamboo, Master Liu took out a stone he had found in the village. He held it up with excitement and said, “This stone is unusual. It looks like a cat’s eye, or even the Earth. We could take it back and make something with it.”

He did not rush to define what the stone was or what it should become. He simply noticed its form, and the idea of making something from it followed naturally. This small moment stayed with me. Our sensitivity to nature does not necessarily come from complex theories. It can grow out of years spent living in a particular place, becoming familiar with its surroundings and learning to notice what others might overlook. A stone, a bamboo stalk, or something we pass every day without a second glance can all become starting points for new ways of seeing.

A banner at the entrance to the village carried a simple phrase: “Clean water tastes sweet.”

It was an unassuming statement, and not necessarily connected to what we were doing. Yet it made me think that our relationship with nature ultimately has to be understood through the specifics of everyday life.

Nest did not attempt to offer an answer about nature. It began with a practical experiment: to explore weaving anew under the constraints of leaving the bamboo rooted and uncut. In doing so, it changed the way we understood material, craft and the act of making.

Sometimes, making does not need to begin by extending our control over nature. Perhaps another kind of beginning is simply to understand what we are working with before deciding what we can do.

— Practice Period: August 2019