Based between China and the United States, artist-filmmaker Luka Yuanyuan Yang’s practice encompasses film, photography, and writing, blending documentary techniques with archival research and cinematic reimaginings to uncover threads of diasporic history.
During her residency at esea contemporary, Yang is presenting a special programme titled Echoes of Elsewhere, which brings together three of her recent short films — Cantonese Tunes on Mott Street, Tales of Chinatown, and The Lady from Shanghai — alongside a talk on her latest book, Dance in Herland. This body of work traces overlooked fragments of Chinese diasporic life across different geographies and eras, from the backstreets of New York’s Chinatown to the stages of 1940s Shanghai.
By weaving together personal testimony and historical investigation, Yang’s work reclaims narratives obscured by dominant historical accounts, illuminating complex experiences of migration and cultural endurance. Through her residency at esea contemporary, she will continue to explore how stories are constructed, engaging local audiences in questions of identity, heritage, and memory.
Yang will also engage with esea contemporary’s ArtClub and the Hong Kong BN(O) community, fostering intergenerational dialogue around migration and cultural memory. As part of this, she will join a community trip to Liverpool on 25 July alongside the Aroma Cantonese Opera Troupe, contributing to the 2025 Liverpool Biennial and deepening her exploration of diasporic performance traditions.
Yang holds degrees from the Communication University of China and the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been shown at institutions and festivals including the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), OCAT Shenzhen, the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and IDFA (Amsterdam). In addition to her film practice, she is an author and researcher, committed to interdisciplinary storytelling that bridges visual art, cinema, and historiography.
