Check Out Xiao Zhang’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Xiao Zhang.

Hi Xiao, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a Chinese artist-filmmaker currently based in Los Angeles. My artistic practice centers on diary essay documentaries, video art, and photography. As an Asian queer individual pursuing education far from home, my works often explore personal family history, hidden memory, and cultural diaspora.

After graduating from an undergraduate school that focused on industrial film production, my interests took a new direction, specifically toward exploring the materiality of moving images. Through experimenting with techniques like cyanotype printing and the tactile craft of hand-developing film, I witnessed how the physical qualities of materials contribute to the presentation of imagery and the narration of stories. Within this intimate, workshop-like approach to moving images, I found that it brought me a closer connection with both my work and the process itself—a closeness that emerged from the exposure to sunlight and the haptic interactions during development. Material performance is a key way through which my films deliver the fluidity of reality within the intimacy.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The biggest challenge throughout this filmmaking journey has been the continuous cycle of self-examination and self-doubt that accompanies the process of trial and error. I’m compelled to tell a story, one often rooted in my personal life experiences concerning self-identity and cross-generational history. I aspire for my own story to resonate not only with me but also with you and other audiences. My goal is to transform the act of viewing into a collective experience that radiates an extended resonance for my audience. However, amidst this process, a lingering question often arises: Can these deeply personal moments genuinely transcend and create an authentic connection with my audience?

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work with film, photography prints and together with video installation. My practice centers on personal poetics which derives from cross-generation memory and diaristic approaches. It continues by employing methods drawn from handcrafted celluloid film and expanded cinema. My work often focuses on a fluctuation between material reality and subjective experience.

In my multidimensional 16mm projector installation work, Untitled Test, it brings together tactility and intangibility through the interplay of light, space, and motion. Through the use of 16mm film projections, and optical sculptural mechanisms embodied in ready-made objects, it delves into the sensorial echoes of off-screen experiences, with a focus on the interplay between the ephemeral and the everlasting. The installation invites the viewers to explore the dichotomy between encountered chance and obscured reality, reflecting on the lingering essence of visual and sensory perceptions.

My recent film A Throwing Forth (2023) is a discontinuous visual record of my family photo and memories I carry from China, my homeland, to Los Angeles. The film takes place in my bedroom, with interweaving stillness and the ongoing status of time. The repeated action of the windows opening and glazing blinds present the degree of translucent shift and opaqueness. When the sunlight hits them at a certain angle, fluctuating memory and vividness of the present are shown.

Any big plans?
I‘m currently working on my thesis film for my graduate school. Following my continued experimentation with refractive and reflective objects (glass, mylar, acetate sheet, etc.), it will be a film that focuses on the optical modulation of scenes from daily landscapes. It will be portrayed in visual collages with multi-composition imagery and photomontage manipulations that borrow from classical Chinese painting.

Also, I am planning to apply for some artist residency for my post-graduation period. Meeting artists from different backgrounds is a way for a continuous learning experience for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://xiao–zhang.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheungshay/
• Other: https://vimeo.com/xiaozhang

Image Credits
No 1. photo by Valentina Rosset