Emilia Yang

Emilia Yang is a Central American artist, memory organizer and researcher. Her creative practice utilizes expanded forms of digital media (XR, transmedia, web, interactive, films, archives, performance, games and public interventions) for the creation of community-based feminist, anti-racist and transformative justice projects and futures. Her practice-based research explores the role of memory, violence, emotions, performance, and participation in the political imagination.

Yang earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California and her Masters of Arts in Communications at Pennsylvania State University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design with a focus on Anti-Racism by Design. Emilia was selected as a Public Art and Engagement Fellow organized by U-M Arts Initiative, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), and Monument Lab and an Arts for Gender Equality Fellow by the Rockefeller Foundation and CARE, which also included her selection as a 2023 Bellagio Center Resident by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Emilia’s theory-practice work has been published in the Memory Studies Journal (Sage), International Journal of Communication (USC Press), The Cahiers Des Amerique Latine (IHEAL, Sorbonne Nouvelle University), Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, Istmo Journal of Central American literary and cultural studies (Denison University), and in the books: The Additivist Cookbook (Institute of Network Cultures), Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (NYU Press), Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook (Peter Lang Press) and Narrating to not forget memory and women’s and feminists movements (Centro de Estudios Superiores de México y Centroamérica).

Her artworks and creative projects have been shown at international venues such as Resistance Biennale in Guatemala, the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, the Museum of Jade and Pre-Columbian Culture in Costa Rica, Casa America and La Neomudejar Vanguard Art Center and Museum in Spain, Le Commun Contemporary Art Building in Geneva, Unity for Humanity, IndieCade Independent Games Festival, Games for Change, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and the Games and the New Media Summit at Tribeca Film Festival. Articles about her work have been featured in multiple international news outlets such as France 24, The Art Newspaper, Artnews, KQED Arts, VICE, Univision, Deutsche Welle, El País, CNN, and EFE.

Personal website www.emiliayang.org