Born and raised in Beijing, Zhiyuan Yang interrogates narratives of marginalized characters, and their ambivalence between seeking to belong, and a desire to remain alienated. Through her often-autobiographical work, Yang critiques social-political issues that are universally prevalent. She invents slippery methodologies to challenge the elitism and exclusivity of the art world driven by a mythology of success. In one of her projects, she exchanged artist and authorial roles with her parents; in another, to achieve an artist visa, she counterfeited an exhibition that only existed for immigration documents; and for her first solo exhibition, she subverted that ‘opportunity’ to extend it to a two-person show with an artist friend.