Brother Nut is an internationally-known

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

based in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. He is known only by his pseudonym, 坚果兄弟, which is also sometimes translated in English as "Nut Brother." He was born in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

in 1981.

Career

His best known work is 2015's "Project Dust," which consisted of the creation of a brick made entirely from

particulate matter Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The ter ...

vacuumed out of heavily polluted Beijing city air. This project spotlighted Beijing's ongoing

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

problems at a time when China sought to recast itself as an environmentally-aware nation. Project Dust received press coverage in the United States and Europe, as well as in Asian press. An online photo gallery is also maintained to summarize the activity of the project. In 2016 Nut Brother was a speaker at the Enter the Anthropocene Creative Time Summit in Washington DC. In 2018, he made headlines again with his project, “ Nongfu Spring Market” in which he exhibited 9000 bottles of polluted water from the village of Xiaohaotu, in Shaanxi. The bottled water was then exhibited in the form of a street market set up in the 798 Art District in Beijing. While the art show was shut down by authorities, the government also began investigations into the town's water pollution problems. In 2020, he was profiled on the Al Jazeera documentary ''101 East: China's Activist Artist'', which showed him collecting toys from children in Baishizhou which would be used for an art work involving a giant game of grab (as in an arcade claw machine), which would highlight the eviction of families in the area.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brother Nut Chinese performance artists Chinese contemporary artists 1981 births Pollution Living people