Question
I wanted to ask you about your training. It seems to me that a lot of your work involves replication of a ready-made object, but the replication you make is really bold and confident. I wondered whether this comes from a training in which monumental sculpture is possible and in which traditional methods of replication and labour are readily available? Does this go back to a training in the Chinese art academy?

HYP
I don’t think so, because I actually had a fine art training, an art background, I learned to paint, I trained as a painter.

Question
Just out of curiosity, how did you get the spy plane in the first place?

HYP
I got hold of the draft plan, because the actual aircraft was shipped away on a Russian aircraft. It was actually a mock-up, and the idea of the mock-up being reconstructed in parts somewhat resembled the aircraft being chopped up in pieces and flown away on a Russian aircraft.

Question
It seemed to me that much of the work you’ve shown us was about dialogues between empires; even the first piece you presented with the insects that are interacting with each other, it’s about power and control, and I was wondering if your experience living in Paris but being at first a Chinese national and then moving on towards becoming a French citizen has influenced or inspired these concepts?

HYP
It’s probably less to do with the fact that I emigrated to France and became a French national, but really, even in the art world, on the surface it might all seem very gentlemanly, while underneath it’s actually full of power conflicts, so this is really an observation from life.

Question
I wondered if you could describe a little bit more the use of animals in your work, from living ones to taxidermied ones; it seems that sometimes they’re mythological, sometimes they’re real...

HYP
I just love animals and I also generally believe that other life forms have higher intelligence than humans.

Transcribed by Jackie Howson and edited by Marion Endt.