After graduating from art school in 2004, Qiu Ja started making wood sculptures after working as an apprentice in a workshop that produced traditional Buddha statues. He used camphor wood, described as an ancient material by the artist. He applied traditional mortise and tenon techniques in his work, joining small wooden pieces into one large entity and then carving on it. Due to humidity changes, the woods being mortised and tenoned would create unpredictable cracks and gaps. Qiu stopped at this step and used butterfly tenons to mark, control, and emphasize these features, allowing the sculptures to become more contemporary. 

In 2023, Qiu finished Zhu, a piece that he made after his early trip to Dunhuang. The name of the sculpture came from a sentence in The Diamond Sutra: “You must cultivate your mind to be free of attachments.” Through creating a peaceful and anonymous figure that looks like an island, it discovers the silent, enigmatic nature of ourselves, like the universe.

The interaction between plains and sanctity, the connection between ancient and modern, and the balance of different elements, all become Qiu’s focus in his artistic creation.