The themes and motifs of the Chinese book “Classic of Mountains and Seas” served as an inspiration to Chinese artist YidanXie to create this stunning, almost meditative animated piece. The book has been described as a compilation of mythic geography and legends.
The artist says,
In this book, there is a huge number of mythical beasts living in the fantastic environment. After reading, I summary the method of mythical creatures construction and utilize this method to create my own mythical beasts, meanwhile, many fantastic and dreamlike environments like “solar smelter” and “crystal dreamland” are build up, which also generate a series of the narrative and story.
The sound in this animation is original by myself. It is not only a background music but also narrative tools which provide the information and details about this fantastic world the images does not show in terms of hearing.
Yidan Xie lives in Washington D.C., and works as multimedia artist focused on dynamic imaging. She enjoys working in a variety of mediums such as video, animation, illustration and sound. She is currently exploring space narratives and the relationship between women, nature and mythology.
You can visit her website to see more of her works.