As an artist, Zai Kuning deliberately complicates convenient categorization, employing a wide range of practices from video to poetry to theatre, dance, performance art, music and installation art. In 1996 he formed Metabolic Theatre Laboratory (MTL) during his residency with The Substation home for the Arts. MTL is a dance theatre group led by Zai as director, performer and trainer. Its main objective is to search for physical language and movement deeply rooted in the South East Asian rituals. Most memorable productions of MTL are Prodigal songs, Remnant 2000, Bluemonkish and No Alibi which toured Hong Kong, Korea and Seoul under the Little Asia Festival 2000. MTL was disbanned 2001.

Zai has spent the last few years researching on the lives of the orang laut (sea gypsies) in the Riau Archipelago, which began under the auspices of a Theatreworks residency project in 2000. In 2003 he completed his short film entitled RIAU and was widely screened in many international film festivals like Rotterdam Film Festival and Busan Film Festival. RIAU now is a permanent collection of Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.

In 2003 Zai initiated onistudio: a small flexible space (opposite substation which is supported by a Chinese karaoke bar) for performances, talk, exhibition and dialogue. Onistudio motto is to ‘think small’. Onistudio lasted about 8 months. Recently zai revive onistudio as event organizer. At the moment onistudio focus mainly on sound art and musical experimentation and punk culture. Please refer to http://www.onisstudio.blogspot.com

Zai’s performance and visual art work have been presented in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Australia, America and Germany.