Essays

Essays & Research

Long-form criticism, contextual research, academic writing, and sustained arguments around art, labour, value, and material.

Three forms of writing

Notes from making. Arguments from research. Language as work.

A curated museum gift shop still life with art books, a tote bag, postcards, a mug, design objects, and a receipt, showing how museum culture becomes portable through retail objects.

Essays & ResearchMay 2026

The Museum Gift Shop Is Where Radical Art Goes to Become Tasteful

Museum shops make art portable, accessible, and ownable. This essay asks what happens when political difficulty is translated into tasteful objects and cultural identity.

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A warm still life of a handmade ceramic cup, woven textiles, packaging materials, shipping labels, a smartphone product page, and a handwritten cost breakdown showing the hidden labor behind handmade goods

Essays & ResearchMay 2026

Handmade Has Become the Art World’s Favorite Way to Disguise Labor

An essay on how “handmade” aesthetics can conceal labour, exhaustion, unequal production, and the economic systems behind contemporary art and design.

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Moonlit sea with rust-colored waves and a pale moon; sulfur dioxide, coal dust, and iron rust on canvas (2022); inspired by Zhang Ruoxu’s “Spring River in the Flower Moonlit Night” (“the spring river enters the old year”). 2022

Essays & ResearchSept 2025

Poetry Paintings: Coal, Ash, and the Materiality of Resistance

A project text on poetry, painting, coal, and ash, where language meets fragile material traces and the memory of labour.

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