Siyan Zhang (b. 1994, China) attends to the existential through piercing into the structural, examining how language forms our living and being. Deeply rooted in an upbringing marked by forced linguistic, corporal, and cultural discipline, Zhang’s work is a result of a stifling interrogation of the self and institutional ideologies that shape it. With symbolically charged materials such as hair, thread, needles, and mirrors, Zhang weaves subtle linguistic play into her work, allowing language to shift between the literal and the metaphorical, the visible and the invisible. Situated in both personal experience and social narratives, her practice treats language as a malleable material through which fixed beliefs about history, identity, and power relations gradually dissolve.

Based between Leipzig and Berlin, Zhang is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB). Before dedicating herself fully to artistic practice, she studied art history in the United States and worked across a range of art institutions, including the Walker Art Center and Christie's New York, and has guest lectured at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. This sustained engagement with art history, institutional structures, and cultural production continues to inform her practice today.




Exhibitions

Cute Apocalypse of the Extended Self - group - GLUE Berlin Mitte DE - 2026

The Looking Glass Self - group - Circle Culture Gallery Berlin Mitte DE - 2026

Will You Be My Pen Pal?  - group - Ilsansuji Busan, KR - 2026

you can look up at the sky, but you must know the sky is also looking down at you - group - Galerie 52 Essen, DE - 2026

Loom - solo - TTTT Leipzig, DE - 2026

stay with me - group -  HGB Leipzig, DE - 2026

Running on Empty - group - BCMA Berlin Kreuzberg, DE - 2025

Notes From a Contact Zone - group - Stadtlabor Lutherstadt Wittenburg, DE - 2024 

100xMB - group - HGB Leipzig, DE - 2024 

When Theory Lacks Street, a collab of Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ), Mexico & Leipzig Art Academy (HGB) - group - online - 2024

Alien Pebbles - group - HGB Leipzig, DE - 2024 



Education

2023 - Present
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig, Germany
Diplom Medienkunst

2013 - 2017
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Applied Mathematics