2022/23 MCAD–Jerome Fellow Interview: Peng Wu | Minneapolis College of Art and Design

2022/23 MCAD–Jerome Fellow Interview: Peng Wu

By Melanie Pankau on May 05, 2023
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A collage of 25 images, consisting of one person per picture posing with an item of theirs.
CarryOn Homes, 2017-present
Photography and audio recorded interviews
Photo by Shun Yong

In this interview, interdisciplinary artist Peng Wu weaves together deeply personal experiences as an Asian queer immigrant with the history of alien labor in North American colonialism in order to challenge the oppressive narratives and foster healing, liberation, and resilience.

Melanie Pankau: You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary artist and designer that collaborates across disciplines and cultures to create participatory art installations to address various urgent social issues including immigration, health disparity, and queer rights. Could you tell us more about your practice and the contemporary art strategies you use to talk about these topics in your work.

Peng Wu: As an interdisciplinary artist and designer, I explore strategies that effectively create spaces fostering alternative modes of knowing—knowing oneself, other human or non-human beings, history, and most importantly, the relationships among them. The way we think is constrained by the physical spaces society has designed: classrooms, galleries, city streets, and parks. These spaces subtly influence our eagerness to engage in dialogue and the subjects we touch upon, thus perpetuating the oppressive nature of the system.

Drawing from personal struggles, including growing up queer in China, immigrating to the U.S., and dealing with chronic sleep disorders, I strive to create public spaces that center on marginalized communities, oppressed histories, and voices, hopefully contributing to a more just future. Exploring strategies such as interdisciplinary collaboration, collective artmaking, community building, installation, and performance, my practice prioritizes the integration of art into everyday life and emphasizes that these approaches extend beyond Western contemporary art. Artmaking serves as a means to understand the personal, social, and historical root causes of our collective struggles and to create spaces for sharing this knowledge, ultimately fostering opportunities for healing, liberation, and resilience for those who share similar experiences.

Two images, the left image of a person holding a paper up containing a red block illustration, the right image of people together in a room.
In one of the Jin Paper Burning participatory events, I created a print with the image of me and my now-husband on one side of the street; my father sits in a wheelchair on the other side of the street. Through the spiritual ritual I “came out” to my father after he passed away.
An image of a white tent inside a blocky building.
Daydream Chapel, 2019
Yarn strings
16 x 35 ft
Photo by Boris Oicherman

Daydream Chapel intends to create a spiritual and sacred space that centers the very basic human need: rest. In the context of our increasingly restless culture, Daydream Chapel facilitates the simple but profound posture of laying down - an iconic posture of Reclining Budhha commonly seen in many Asian countries. The posture symbolizes the ultimate peace and the in-between status of conscious and unconscious, life and death. Through practicing this buddha posture in this dedicated space I hosted regular public events to have restful conversations with sleep doctors and participants.
Two images, the top image is of a floor with well-placed pillows and lamps, the bottom image is of people in that same room.
Archive of Sleeplessness, public event of The Sleep Project, 2019
Photo by Boris Oicherman

At the early stage of The Sleep Project I hosted a series of public events to bring together medical professionals and public audiences—to exchange knowledge of sleep and healing as equal human beings without the identity of doctor and patient. As scientific research shows the identity of insomnia patients is one of the causes of insomnia. The conversations challenged the role of modern hospitals as a healing machine: where dysfunctioned people/components are fixed and put back to the society/machine to keep it running. While it is the machine that wear out the people to be questioned.
A collage of 25 images, consisting of one person per picture posing with an item of theirs.
CarryOn Homes, 2017–present
Photography and audio recorded interviews
Photo by Shun Yong; Interviews by Peng Wu, Shun Yong, and Zoe Cinel; Audio editing by Peng Wu and Zoe Cinel

More than fifty immigrants and refugees to our studio to share their stories of making home in Minnesota. Each of them was asked to bring one object from their home country and share the story of the object and beyond. A woman from India brought a pair of candle holders to pray to her ten thousand Gods. A girl from Syria brought a pair of shoes she was wearing to feel home till a hole appeared on the bottom of the shoe.
An image of people down on the ground 'napping' in an art gallery.
Nap Station, 2019
Pillows, fabric, needle, thread
Photo by boris Oicherman

Sleep may be the last resistance of our body to the never-enough demand for speed and efficiency. During Slow Art Day, I invited participants to take naps in the Weisman Art Museum gallery in front of artwork at designated napping stations. During the nap, I embroidered one word on their personal items based on the conversations with them.
An image of people around a table working on ceramic projects.
One session of the Ceramic Sunday hosted on my dinner table, a free clay workshop for queer and immigrants friends almost every Sunday since June 2022.
Two images, both of ceramics. Left image is a hand holding a ceramic dumpling, right image is an assortment of various other ceramic objects.
Over the past year, we created various claywork inspired by our experience of making homes in this foreign country. For example, the ceramic dumping on the left tells the story about my mother. She visited me from China when I was still in art school. I was busy learning the western way of art making and barely had time to eat. Before she left she made one thousand dumplings and put them in the freezer so I wouldn’t starve.
Two images of a person posing as a fortune teller in an attempt to engage sensitive conversations in communist China.
Fortune Telling, 2020
Red fabric, graphic printing on Taobao
6 x 8 in.
Photo by: Youyang Yu

While in China without access to artmaking spaces and tools, I turned to affordable online printing on red fabric—a material commonly found in Chinese public spaces. Adopting the street vendor's strategy of portability, I posed as a fortune teller to avoid the frequent police patrols in Beijing's public streets. Beneath this deceptive guise, I sought to create spaces for conversations with passersby on sensitive topics in the city.