Photo by Edward Boches
Yu-Wen Wu is an interdisciplinary artist. Born in Taipei Taiwan, Wu’s subjectivity as an immigrant is central to her artwork, creating an intersection of personal narrative and global discourse. Arriving at an early age to the United States, her experiences have shaped her work in areas of migration, examining issues of displacement, assimilation, and the shape of identity in a new country. At the intersection of art, science, social and culture issues, and the natural world her wide range of projects include large-scale drawings, site-specific video installations, community-engaged practices, and public art.
Some of Wu’s recent exhibitions include features at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington: Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece; Xippas Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland; Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford, MA; Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, NY; the Nielsen Library, Smith College, Northampton, MA; SITE, Santa Fe NM; Perlman Teaching Museum at Carleton College, Northfield, MN; Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis MN; ICA MECA, Portland ME; Rosecliff Mansion, Newport, RI; Center for Border Studies, Cucuta Colombia; and the Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Brookline MA.
Wu is committed to creating participatory community projects most notably the durational work Leavings/Belongings with iterative installations in Maine, Massachusetts, Minneapolis and Santa Fe. Wu’s other large-scale works include Lantern Stories (2020-22), an outdoor public artwork commissioned by the Greenway Conservancy for Chin Park in Boston’s Chinatown and a similar project in San Francisco’s Chinatown in October 2022; We Belong (2022), a traveling light-based public artwork supported by Now + There and a City of Boston Transformative Public Art grant; The Poetry of Reason (2022), a wall sculpture at Tufts University Cummings Center; and Terrain (2016), a sculptural wall drawing for the Chao Center at Harvard Business School.
Wu has received numerous awards, including the inaugural Prilla Smith Brackett Award (Davis Museum, Wellesley MA), a national grant from the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Brother Thomas Fellowship. She has recently been awarded the 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize with a solo exhibition at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
Her work is included in several private and public collections.