Yolanda He Yang
Artist Statement
Yolanda He Yang is a China-born, Boston-based installation and performance artist whose practice engages natural materials, such as dust, dirt, and debris, to write ephemeral "eco-letters" that mourn, honor, and question the invisible forces shaping how we live and remember. Raised in a Catholic family in Northern China, her work draws from embodied rituals and inherited silence, using gestures of care to explore the tension between personal histories and collective ecologies. Rooted in maintenance art and relational performance, her recent projects unfold through slow, site-specific acts, dusting demolition sites, tracing ground surfaces, and composing temporary marks with found matter. In these quiet performances, she explores kinship with the more-than-human world and reflects on the politics of labor, impermanence, and belonging.
Bio
Yolanda He Yang is an installation and performance artist born and raised in a Catholic family in North China. Growing up through frequent relocations between homes, schools, and playgrounds shaped her sensitivity to impermanence, labor, and lived environments. Her work draws on subtlety and ephemerality as quiet yet powerful forces tied to materiality and storytelling. Her recent residencies span from prehistoric landscapes in Cairo and Luxor, Egypt, to a demolition and construction recycling site at RAIR (PA), agricultural cornfields at Villkulla Residency (NE), and an upcoming nature-based residency at the Marble House Project (VT). A 2025 MassCreative Fellow, she leads Behind VA Shadows, amplifying the creative voices of frontline museum workers.