“Zhou’s stirring moving image works, performances, and videos, often layers personal and political histories addressing questions of place, the silences in the archive, and the forces of connection.“- juror Gee Wesley, Curatorial Assistant Department of Media and Performance, MoMA.

Yuge Zhou is the 2024 Joyce Foundation Artadia Award recipient.

At the age of five, Yuge Zhou (周雨歌 ) became a household name in China as the singer for popular children’s TV series. Yuge came to the US almost two decades ago to earn a degree in computer science and subsequently moved into video art and installations. Yuge has exhibited nationally and internationally in prominent art and public venues. Her work has been featured in the New York Magazine, Hyperallergic and The Atlantic, and recently acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation.

Growing up in the second stage of China’s economic reform, Yuge witnessed a massive influx of migration and expansion in her hometown Beijing. As she moved to America in 2007, she became deeply intrigued with the transient encounters and connections across constructed or natural spaces – the sites of our shared dreams. Yuge uses the camera to document and reassemble scenes that reveal personal and geopolitical relationships embedded within metaphorical territories. Her recent projects explore the actual, historical and emotional distance between her homeland and adopted country—and broader challenges of transcending separation.