Jiani Gu

My practice explores the unstable relationships between language, material, and cultural translation. As a Chinese artist working within Western theoretical structures, I often feel estranged from the very systems I’m asked to engage. This tension drives me to question how meaning is constructed, who gets to define it, and where it begins to fracture. Through materials like jade, sandpaper, and text, I embrace mistranslation and misreading—not as errors, but as tools of resistance. I’m interested in the spaces where language fails or mutates, and in reclaiming agency within those moments of epistemic uncertainty and semantic collapse.