Zhangxinan Wu 吴张⼼安 (she/her) is a Chinese interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work spans dance improvisation, vocalization, videography, and performance poetry. Her practice explores art as a distillation of existence, often engaging performance as daily ritual to create spaces for conscious and subconscious depth, while fostering contemplation, recycling, and community connection.
Wu is the co-founder of Thursday Afternoon Lab, a performance collective comprising artist-researchers, performance-makers, actors, and somatic practitioners based in Beijing, New York and London. Their work has been showcased at venues such as the Danish Culture Center (Beijing), Yuan Museum, and the abC Art Book Fair. Since 2023, she has collaborated with the Untitled Group as dramaturg and writer. In 2024, she was a resident artist at the Amerta Residency Program in Hawaii.
Wu serves as the research director and instructor for Beijing Contact Improvisation and is the program curator for Body-Time Contact Improv Festival 2024 & 2025. She previously worked as a Programs & Events Intern at Movement Research in Spring/Summer 2024. Together with collaborator Bella Thorpe-Woods, Wu presented the exhibition "In the Offing" at The Alcove in Brooklyn in Winter 2024-2025.
Time is Licking (work-in-progress), 2024
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Thursday Afternoon Lab (TALab) is an interdisciplinary collective comprising artist-researchers, performance-makers, actors, and somatic practitioners based in Beijing and New York. Founded almost serendipitously on an ordinary Thursday afternoon in Winter 2021, TALab delves into the boundaries between the everyday, the workshop, and the performance through dynamic and experimental approaches to movement-based art and choreo-politics.
As the group's name signifies their commitment to the temporal, everyday, and decentralized practices, they challenge the prevailing value system of neoliberal meaning-making, efficacy, and individualism. Instead of constructing a world or community ex nihilo, they aim to rediscover and revitalize the existing relationality and entanglement, pushing against boundaries and paradigms that fragment and regulate the everyday. Through a unique blend of techniques (including Contact Improvisation, Feldenkrais method, Body-Mind Centering, Tai-chi, craft-making, and Zen Buddhist practices) and theoretical frameworks, TALab aims to create an inclusive and transformative environment for artists and participants alike. Their recent works have been presented at Danish Culture Center (Beijing), abC Art Book Fair, and Yuan Art Museum.
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Kine Art is an online platform housed on the Chinese platform WeChat, dedicated to curating and sharing content on performance curation, performance studies, movement theory, somatic practices, and movement-based videography. Functioning as a virtual hub for writings and ideas, Kine Studio aims to foster dialogue and exploration within the performing arts community.
Video still, from Enituor, or the Everyday (2022)