Jiayu Liu (b. 1990, Liaoning, China)
Lives and works in Beijing and London
MA: Royal College of Art, 2014
Known for her immersive and evocative media installations, Jiayu Liu is a media artist based in London and Beijing, dedicated to the creative practice and research of media art. The reflective nature of the physical and psychological world around us inspires Jiayu Liu’s artistic practice. Her work explores the complex and layered relationship between humans and nature. She is interested in how people observe nature from different perspectives and uses data as a key thread to connect various elements within a network of objects. Through this, she studies how data flows, meets, collides, repels, penetrates, and merges across virtual and real spaces. As media and technologies evolve, her works remain open-ended, always in the process of “re-creation”, generating new meanings through constant dialogue with the audience and environment.
In recent years, Jiayu has started to see Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a sensitive and dynamic creative medium in her practice. She leads her team in developing the AI co-creation system Jiayu*, focusing on how machines perceive the world and project their understanding. Through this system, she studies how AI can gradually build its own cognitive structure and artistic language during the creative process. Her research challenges the traditional idea of AI as only a tool and explores the more profound, dynamic relationship between humans, machines, and nature.
Her works have been exhibited at many international institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) London, Saatchi Gallery, York Museum, Watermans Arts Centre, Kanvas Art Space Dubai, K11 Art Space Hong Kong, CAFA Art Museum, OCAT Shanghai, Cc Foundation Shanghai, UCCA Edge Shanghai, and TANK Shanghai. Her installations and videos have been featured internationally on CCTV-9 (CCTV Documentary channel), ITN N2K, The Art Newspaper, Dezeen, VICE, Hube, CLOT, Arduino, Designboom and Fubiz. In 2017 and 2018, it was shortlisted for the Lumen Prize and the Aesthetica Art Prize. She has also participated in important exhibitions and festivals, such as the 59th Venice Biennale, London Design Festival, Transmediale Berlin, Kinetica Art Fair London, Guangzhou Triennial, Chengdu Biennale, Wuhan Biennale, Jinan International Biennale, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Urban\Architecture Biennale, Hong Kong-Macau Visual Arts Biennale, and Beijing Media Art Biennale. Jiayu has collaborated with global brands such as Audemars Piguet, BVLGARI, Burberry, Montblanc, Longines, and Lancôme. She works with environmental organizations, including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace, and Invisible Dust UK. Together, they have created projects focusing on sustainability and climate change.