ARTIST STATEMENT
I grew up in a world that called itself a utopia—but underneath was silence, control, and contradiction. Born in Japan and raised in China, I witnessed firsthand how political and cultural systems quietly shape who we are and what we’re allowed to remember, express, or desire. As a multidisciplinary artist working in installation, sculpture, and video, I examine how identity, memory, and agency are formed—and sometimes fractured—by these invisible structures. Much of my work begins with childhood objects: bead mazes, swings, stacking rings. These forms suggest play and freedom, yet they’re bound by limits, mirroring the systems we grow up within. Using ceramics and found materials, I build immersive environments that feel familiar, even playful—but slowly unravel to reveal deeper emotional and ideological tensions.
Growing up under censorship, I saw how conversations around gender, labor, and selfhood were often muted or erased. My practice creates space for what was unsaid: speculative, non-binary worlds that blur binaries and hold contradiction. I’m interested in how we internalize authority—how education, nationalism, and everyday norms shape our understanding of the world and ourselves. By layering fragility beneath polished surfaces, I invite viewers into a space of curiosity—then ask them to look closer. What seems stable might not be. What feels sweet might sting. Through these quiet ruptures, I hope to create room for reflection, resistance, and the possibility of something different.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lulu Luyao Chang (b. 1996, Hyogo, Japan) is a multidisciplinary artist and art educator based in Chicago, working across installation, sculpture, and video. Born in Japan and raised in China, her transnational upbringing informs a practice that examines the contradictions within systems of control—navigating the tensions between freedom and restriction, memory and erasure, play and unease.
Lulu’s installations often draw on the aesthetics of childhood—mechanical toys, swings, bead mazes—combined with precarious assemblages of ceramics and found materials. Through this sugar-coated language, her work unpacks the subtle violence of social norms, censorship, and ideological conditioning, revealing how innocence and control are often intertwined.
A committed educator, Lulu is currently a teaching artist at the Chicago Children’s Museum and Art Omi, where she leads creative, hands-on workshops that center curiosity, experimentation, and intergenerational dialogue.
She is a 2025 Inclusion Fellow with Chicago Sculpture International and a 2022 ArtTable Fellow. She was a featured panelist for The State of LGBTQ in China hosted by The China Project. Her solo exhibition at the Chinese American Arts Council | Gallery 456 in New York was reviewed in IMPULSE Magazine. Her work has been exhibited at IRL Gallery, Latitude Gallery, Art Fair | Detroit, and Zero Art Fair, with video works screened in New York and Beijing. Her writing has appeared in World Art and GUERNICA Magazine.
Lulu holds an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and a BA in Art History from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.
© Lulu Luyao Chang