I was born in Kunming, China, in 2000. I live in New York, US. I have obtained my BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024. I participtated the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2025. I’m currently a MFA candidate at the Columbia University.

My work centers on the distance and the praxis of daily landscapes. It takes on the form of moving images, live performances, and installations, drawing from the quotidian and processing it through body art and its documentation, which inherently carries the warmth of the flesh. The choice of materials and settings are omnipresent and reflects an intuitive engagement with the world around me. Within the interrelated context of body art and moving image installations, I explore the dialogue where installation extends the transience of the performance, while the performance embodies the presence of the installation.

By translating my ideas into reality through performance, I re-experience them in the present, merging the fantastical with the real and weaving the gaze of foreign land to homeland. My work is part of my life; it does not go beyond life. Just as life is raw and rough, so too is my work—it unfolds what life looks like and invites audiences to reflect on their own sense of place and belonging. I treasure not knowing, and that not knowing gives me the urge to explore and to experiment. I do not know, so I keep exploring. I wander, and I wonder.

YUQUAN DUAN

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