Hang Zhang

Profile

Hang Zhang (b. 1993) is an artist based in Leeds. Zhang identifies speaking for the underprivileged that do not yet have enough of a voice as her artist’s social responsibility. Her focus ranged from a small lab beetle that otherwise would never receive care or love from humans; domestic animals like sheep that serve human needs but are rarely regarded as friends; herself, an international student who challenges institutional bureaucracy and a non-white female who confronts subtle racism in British society; herself, a young girl who grew up in a patriarchal Chinese household with little control over her own body; Andean culture which is being impacted by Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism; and the alpacas in East Asia, which are heavily anthropomorphised and have their natural needs neglected.

Zhang’s latest work, Hangover Square (2022), is an autobiographical installation and performance about her rebelling against middle-class values by modifying her body to fit working-class visuals. It narrates the story of her tattoos – how she claimed her body back as a territory from patriarchy through tattoos.

Zhang’s ongoing practice-led PhD project investigates the cultural images of South American lamoid species in globalisation under the epochal impacts of post-colonisation and the Internet.

Zhang’s latest solo show Through the Party Ring (2022) at the Art House Wakefield.

Research interests

• Studies of the Lamoid Species (llama, alpaca, vicuña, and guanaco): llama blog (2022 onwards)
• Companion Species and Posthumanism: Sam, the Red Flour Beetle (2022)
• Tattooed Women Bodies and Class: Hangover Square (2022)
• Unconventional Scripts and Asemic Writing: zoot path ih7 (2021) Talk To the Lunars (2020)

Qualifications

• BA Fine Art
• MA Fine Art