Xiaowen Zhu

Xiaowen Zhu is a Shanghai-born artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work spans film, photography, performance, installation, and mixed media, often exploring diasporic experience, migration, and identity. She studied Film, TV and Media Arts at Tongji University in China, participated in an exchange program at the Academy of Art and Design Offenbach in Germany, and later obtained an MFA in Art Video from Syracuse University in the United States. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally, and she has received honors including the TASML Artist Residency Award, the Marylyn Ginsburg Klaus Fellowship, and jury awards at DOK Munich and the Mexico International Documentary Film Festival.

Zhu is the author of the children’s picture book Dandan’s Dream, illustrated by Yanling Gong (also listed as Gong Yanling), which follows a girl who dreams of mailing herself to the South Pole to visit her father studying icebergs there. In addition to this work, she created the long-term multimedia project Oriental Silk, encompassing film, installation, photography, textiles, and a book published in 2020, reflecting on Chinese American migration and the history of the silk trade. She has lived and worked internationally, including in Los Angeles as a visiting artist and more recently in London and Berlin, where she has held