Ningxia Zhang (b. 1990, Hubei, China) is an artist and technologist living and working in New York. Rooted in compassion, her practice employs a range of strategies and materials to explore the fundamental human experiences, including pain, desire, love and grief. Often created from her most intimate personal memories, histories and archival materials, her works aim to connect people through shared inner phenomena and shed light on pathways to heal. Shifting between and combining techniques of different mediums, including digital fabrication, virtual world building, performance and moving images, she creates works that invoke embodied experiences, therapeutic effects and a sense of oneness.
Despite having educational and professional backgrounds in Computer Science and technology, she centers her artistic investigation on humans’ inner lives, with influences from Eastern philosophies, behavioral biology and neuroscience. With the rapid progression of artificial intelligence, her works seek to foreground the complexity and uniqueness of being human, with all of its messiness, inefficiency, agony, contradictions and capacities to empathize and love. Confronted with the climate crisis, continuous conflicts and wars, the increasing isolation and polarization, the artist feels a renewed urgency to resort to collective healing and connect through fundamental human values.
EDUCATION
2014 M.Sc. in Computer Science, Specialized in Human-Computer Interaction, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2012 B.Sc. in Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
2012 B. Eng. in Software Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
EXHIBITIONS
2022 Residue, GREY STATE, online
2021 Contemporary Practices, SVA Flatiron Gallery, New York, NY
2020 COVID IMMEMORY - Diaries, Online
RESIDENCIES
2021 Contemporary Practices, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
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Despite having educational and professional backgrounds in Computer Science and technology, she centers her artistic investigation on humans’ inner lives, with influences from Eastern philosophies, behavioral biology and neuroscience. With the rapid progression of artificial intelligence, her works seek to foreground the complexity and uniqueness of being human, with all of its messiness, inefficiency, agony, contradictions and capacities to empathize and love. Confronted with the climate crisis, continuous conflicts and wars, the increasing isolation and polarization, the artist feels a renewed urgency to resort to collective healing and connect through fundamental human values.
EDUCATION
2014 M.Sc. in Computer Science, Specialized in Human-Computer Interaction, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
2012 B.Sc. in Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
2012 B. Eng. in Software Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
EXHIBITIONS
2022 Residue, GREY STATE, online
2021 Contemporary Practices, SVA Flatiron Gallery, New York, NY
2020 COVID IMMEMORY - Diaries, Online
RESIDENCIES
2021 Contemporary Practices, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY