In In the heart of the unborn creature (2026), Xue Ying approaches dwelling through the intertwined ideas of construction, protection, vulnerability, and preservation. The work takes the form of a spiraling, contracting structure composed of hand-forged iron spikes, using the language of modern industrial materials to imagine the possibilities—and contradictions—of an ecological shelter.

The hardness and defensive quality of the iron structure are countered by fragile organic materials such as wool and clay. Nestled within the dense layers of sharp projections, cracked eggs formed and fired from clay occupy an ambiguous state: they may suggest the emergence of new life, but equally the possibility of a life interrupted before it can begin. Protection and threat therefore become difficult to distinguish; the structure that appears capable of sheltering its vulnerable interior is itself uncanny and potentially hostile.

Through this tension, Xue considers the distinction between shelter and home. A structure may protect a body without necessarily becoming a place of belonging, just as preservation can simultaneously imply care, containment, and control. Within the work’s uneasy coexistence of industrial and organic materials, hardness and fragility, enclosure and exposure, crisis and hope remain suspended together.