Sun Xinyue


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Sun Xinyue (b. 2005, Bejing, China). Currently, Sun Xinyue's art predominantly centres around pencils, with plans to explore other mediums in future creations. Graduating from Liuli Senior High School in 2023, her exposure to diverse cultural influences during her academic years has shaped her artistic vision. She believes that art should always evolve, pushing boundaries, embracing challenges, and discovering new aspects of oneself through continuous creative exploration.

Her artwork centres on her personal experiences, encompassing her transient living situation and trying to understand the impact of memories in life through a variety of artistic forms.I consider myself an intercultural diaspora citizen, I constantly move between cultures, languages, and histories without a fixed point of return. My sense of belonging is not tied to a single geography, but instead woven from fragments of daily life, intimate memories, and the shifting essence of existence. Travel has broadened my perception of identity, yet it has also emphasised the complexity of home: where is it located—on land, in people, or in memory?

Friendships once anchored me when relocating, but over time it is memory that shapes who I am. I carry experiences instead of coordinates. Art has become a sanctuary where these pieces of my life can coexist without conflict. Through images, textiles, and collected traces of time, I construct a narrative that holds emotion, displacement, and healing with equal tenderness. My work becomes a vessel to revisit landscapes, relationships, and versions of myself that I no longer inhabit but cannot let go of.

As a Chinese woman navigating different cultural contexts, my practice naturally connects to questions of feminism, women’s rights, and equality. Growing up in a society where women’s voices are often softened or overlooked, I learned early on that memory can be a form of resistance. Women remember what institutions tend to forget. Women’s stories passed through family narratives, digital traces, and shared emotional experiences. This understanding shapes my approach to image-making, stitching, and material assemblage, where personal memories echo broader struggles for visibility and autonomy among Chinese women today.
Looking ahead, I will continue to explore the formation, distortion, and social function of memory. My future projects will move beyond individual narratives to consider how memory reflects collective histories, the human condition, and the ongoing pursuit of equality. 

Marginalisation, women's voices, and women's status will remain central to my practice as I build spaces where women’s stories, both personal and political, can remain visible and unforgotten.



Title: Hashtaged
Year: 2026
Medium: Mixed Media Installation
Statement:

Hashtaged’s practice explores the entrenched social expectations placed on Chinese women, particularly the belief that family duty and marriage should take precedence over personal ambition. Rooted in patriarchal histories, these norms persist offline and online, where cultural and algorithmic pressures define what it means to be a “good woman.” Women are expected to sacrifice autonomy for social harmony, while resistance is often dismissed as emotional excess. Rather than opposing these labels directly, Hashtaged examines how women reinterpret and reshape them. Inspired by the proverb, “They throw mud at me; I use the mud to grow lotus flowers,” this soft resistance transforms harm into endurance and agency. Labels thus operate ambivalently—as tools of oppression and mechanisms of self-protection—revealing subtle forms of agency, endurance, and quiet resistance.