• Shishi is an entirely self-taught textile tufting artist
• Her signature pieces are 3D vases that reference ceramics
• She tells stories of belonging and cultural diversity through her practice

Shishi San’s love for textiles stems from her childhood, when her stepfather taught her to sew. “Later in life, when I discovered punch needling, something clicked,” she says. The dialogue between hand, needle and textile felt ancient, yet entirely her own. Working with a tufting gun, Shishi turns her textile forms into 3D structures and signature large-scale fluffy vases. “I realised they are the ideal structure for communication, not as vessels to be filled, but as forms to be inhabited,” she says. Shishi makes her vases with an accumulation of references including Chinese porcelain, Japanese floral tradition, Brussels ornamentation and the memory of a Vietnamese childhood shaped by the duality of adoption and exile. “I want viewers to feel the pull of multiple origins and ask themselves where a form belongs, and whether belonging is even the right framework,” she says.