Hai Zhang and ICI

Hai Zhang is a New York-based Artist and Photographer born in Kunming, China. He moved to the United States in 2000 to study architecture. In 2008, he left his job to pursue photography full-time. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the globe, in places such as New York, Europe, Russia, Turkey, Costa Rica, and Asia.

Zhang uses photography to investigate the nuances and complexities of modern societies. He believes that it is a vital tool for examining both the subject and the context it exists in. His work focuses on the intersection of photography and other media such as collages, artist books, videos, and installations.

Zhang is a recipient of Rafael Vinoly Architecture Fellowship in 2009 and co-recipient of Alabama State Council of Art grant in 2021. In 2014, his work was nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. His series of photographs and collages based on a decade-long project in Alabama are now a part of the permanent collection at the US Library of Congress.

Hai Zhang is a visiting artist at the India China Institute for the summer and fall of 2022.

The India China Institute (ICI) serves as a hub for research and public engagement on India, China, and beyond. Its mission is to address issues of global concern through collaborative research and the formation of transnational networks of scholars and practitioners based in India, China, and other parts of the world. We believe that studying the pasts and presents of India, China, and other countries in the global South can provide new frameworks that offer alternative perspectives to dominant understandings of global politics, culture, and design.

Hai Zhang’s photographic works depict, examine, and survey complex issues surrounding Cities and Citizenship, one of ICI’s core research clusters. Disputes over citizenship are one of the most hotly contested arenas of political life globally, partly due to international and domestic migration. It is usually in cities that migrants seek new jobs and lives and debates over citizenship are closely linked to questions over who access to cities and jobs, housing, services, and spaces of consumption within them. Of the global urban population of 4 billion, about one-third or 1.5 billion make their livelihoods and their homes in the rapidly growing cities of India and China. ICI is committed to studying these global and local flows and frictions and helping direct these toward more sustainable and equitable outcomes.