Alice Yuan Zhang

Anti-Racist Pop Quiz

HTML artwork / ten-question educational tool

"Anti-Racist Pop Quiz is an HTML artwork / ten-question educational tool I created in June of 2020 as a response to police brutality and systemic racism against Black Americans. The project was shared widely across social media. See http://antiracistpopquiz.com/.

My artistic approach is to recognize and amplify shared narratives and needs, aiming to make participatory work that is accessible beyond the academic pedestal. I use new media strategically, because interactive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and 3D can capture wide interest in an era of short attention spans, and from there, juxtapose powerful visions against our physical realities, seed new socio-ecological entanglements, and invite deeper dialogue and grassroots change. I also lead public programs and performances that involve play, somatic remembering, experimentation, and community weaving."

– Alice Yuan Zhang

About the artist

Alice Yuan Zhang

I am an artist, educator, and community weaver, living on unceded Tongva, Chumash, Kizh land (Los Angeles). My parents and I uprooted from 大连 (Dalian), China when I was nine years old. My upbringing is based on ascetic Buddhist values, cultural and familial traditions of mutual aid, and the immigrant optimism of hard work as survival. Since moving to the United States, I learned early on that art was a way to negotiate a voice for myself, navigate trauma, build community, and invite others into a more just future.

When my father abruptly passed away a few years ago, I decided to forge an authentic though unconventional and discouraged path, by leaving my job in brand strategy consulting to spend a lifetime in cultural and community work. The lack of representation of Asian American women in art and in new media in particular motivates me to direct my voice, wit, and agency to share my perspectives and uphold space for folks so often left unaccounted in dominant cultural spaces.

I distill clear beliefs within myself in order to respond with tact and agility to the issues we see in the world. I want to serve thoughtful, medium-agnostic responses to what folks need, in context of ecological grief, interracial support, anticapitalist values, and medicine against hopelessness. As an involved member of the local cultural organization NAVEL, I created the immersive web + augmented reality project Requiem for Lost Plants honoring the Indigenous plant elders here, and hosted an experimental learning group called Digital Matterealities which culminated into a public knowledge board as well as a group show on domestic intimacy amidst the pandemic. As a resident artist at CultureHub, I ran an animist workshop called Interspecies Speed Dating, and created Open Garden, an interactive garden plot livestreamed by solar onto the decentralized web, experimenting with the potentiality of our online attention and the labor of digital sovereignty. I am also the co-founder and co-organizer of virtual care lab, an open collective for genuine presence and creative collaboration based on mutual governance. I currently teach a media design course at Sarah Lawrence College (practicing a nonhierarchical, student-led model) and have given guest lectures on relational ecology, DIY community building, and digital commoning at CalArts, MICA, Pepperdine University, Emerson College, USC Media Arts and Practice, University of Toronto, Emily Carr University, CAA New Media Conference and 3HD Festival.