Collecting waste can be a creative hobby

Shot by Jiang Xiaowei. Edited by Jiang Xiaowei. Subtitles by Lin Lixin.

A studio in Shanghai's Jing'an District has made a habit of collecting trash from the streets and using it creatively.

It collects things thrown away by people but has memories attached to it. It then recycles them for their stage performances, hoping people will find something of interest in them.

The walls of the Regenerate Lab, a tiny and messy studio on Hanzhong Road, are splashed with colorful posters and Inner Mongolian stamps. It is mostly filled with boxes, watercolors, crafts, and various kinds of waste such as bulbs and plastic foam.

It is run by three young people – Yu Lei, who is the director, Yu Weiyi and Wodele.

Yu Lei hails from Hulun Buir City in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He graduated in stage design from the Shanghai Theatre Academy in 2015.

He would regularly visit a store in the Shanghai Cultural Commercial Building on Fuzhou Road to purchase materials and eventually got familiar with its owner.

Yu Lei's Model Shop

In 2019, Yu Lei took over the shop and renamed it "Yu Lei Model Shop."

Although the lease of the shop expired in October 2021 and shut down, he knew many interesting friends. The store, anyway, could accommodate four to five people at most.

During his university days, Yu Lei was involved in dozens of performances, but he hated it when he discovered that the exquisitely designed tools were randomly thrown away after the play.

In his model shop, he displayed crafts made by him and his father, which were appreciated by customers.

Yu Lei's father is good at making decorations with leftover bones, wood and stones of all shapes. He can make dolls and give them meaningful names. It influenced Yu Lei to some extent.

"I made small crafts with clay and they sold well in my shop," Yu Lei said. "Dolls made by my father were also popular."

These crafts became larger, and Yu Lei regularly started participating in art parades.

He found that passersby of all ages were interested in their crafts and actively interacted with them.

"Once, I made an octopus-shaped car. A friend asked: 'How about putting up a performance for these crafts?' I agreed."

 At a startup competition, the trio of Yu Lei, Yu Weiyi and Wodele won the first prize. Since then, the Jing'an District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has provided financial and other kinds of support for the team.

In July 2020, Regenerate Lab officially came into existence.

The trio split their tasks – Yu Lei and Wodele are responsible for visual and mechanism design, while Yu Weiyi looks after the business part. Sometimes, they handle the crafts themselves.

"Bosa and Uwe" was the lab's first play.

It is an original story about a little girl named Bosa, with one green and one blue eyes, and a bird named Uwe. They both have differences, but they help and give each other company.

The studio focuses on creating children's plays and puppet shows. They have staged four original plays so far, with the other three being "City Myth 18-Face Night," "Nonsense Factory," and "The End of My Room."

"I used to collect materials from bird and flower markets and secondary markets during my university days," Yu Lei said. "But most of them are closed now."

But it was not a problem because they had many other "sources."

"People were curious about us and kept observing us when we were working in the studio," Yu Lei said. "They are warm-hearted and are very enthusiastic about collecting various kinds of waste for us."

As long as Yu Lei can imagine a character in his mind, he accepts the thrown-away wastes from others.

Yu Lei is the voice behind "Little Boy."

This year, most of Yu Lei's materials came from his hometown in Inner Mongolia as he is working on a new performance. It is a musical inspired by Manggusi, a character from an Inner Mongolian folk tale.

During the Spring Festival, Yu Lei went back to Inner Mongolia to do some research and learn more about relevant historical stories from local artists and history teachers.

Some of Yu Lei's relatives still live a nomadic life on the grassland. They collect various kinds of raw materials for him, such as bones of cattle and sheep of different shapes.

In his spare time, Yu Lei purchases gadgets or "picking up rubbish." When walking on the streets, if he spots something "useful" he picks it up.

Pointing to a black headgear, Yu Lei said, "I picked up this circuit table from a garment market."
"Little Boy" is a cyberpunk-style character from "Nonsense Factory."

"His hairpiece was bought from Yuyuan Garden," he said. "His arms were made of bicycle handlebars. His face is filled with tissues, and his body was made of plastic foam taken from my former shop."

Using waste for creative work is something Yu Lei enjoys.

"They can be used after washing and sterilizing them," he said. "Because they are second-hand, they are more antique and textured."

The studio has a motto: "Pick up waste with joy and make it fascinating."

Uncertainty is the main character of Regenerate Lab. "Use everything that is available," Yu Lei said. "We present interesting things and stories, letting the audience dissect the show."