Helen Jiayu Zhang
helenjiayuzhang@gmail.com
zhangjiayu0829@126.com
@helen_jzhang
Helen Zhang is a New York, Eindhoven, Shanghai, and Beijing based artist, designer, and performer. Her work challenges the boundary between art and design, which can go beyond the sole scope of graphics to embrace movement, text, experiences, and space. The work aligns itself with bodies doing things, rather than bodies expressing something. Her artistic research merges with the approach of design as a process-based practice, unlocking the essence within her subjects.
The work initiates "conversation" of action dynamics as ephemeral sites—the production and subject, to create prospective conditions where perception perceives itself, gaining aisthetic relationally in between individuals. The work is not outside the field, but it continually questions the terms by which the field recognises value.
Through the media of design, she critically examines the position and importance of visual communication in relation to culture and society in an interdisciplinary creative system. By exploring the complexities of the mind-body relationship, the portrayal of the female body on stage, and the nuances between improvisation and composition, the space of work become generative, poetic, and experimental. Thus, the relationships between space, work, and audiences are reconsidered.
EDUCATION
2025-present Design Academy Eindhoven MA
Critial Inquiry Lab
2018-2020, 2022-2024 Parsons School of Design BFA
Communication Design Dean's List
The New School Lang Dance Minor
2020-2022
Central Academy of Fine Arts
Design Department Advanced Study
AWARDS/RECOGNITION
Page Not Found NL
Printed Matter NY
Aroundpublishing Shanghai
Shoutout LA
abc Art Books in China
Newones Award
Graduate 360
Award 360
Art-d Global Art Design Award
DGL International Creative Arts
Multiple Formats Art Book Fair
The New School: Art, Design, and AI Exhibition in collaboration with LG AI Research
Central Academy of Fine Arts: Future Unknown 2.0
WAW What Woman Exhibition NY
(Leading artwork “past its awkward and irrelevant years, down through the civilizations.”-Sheila Heti)