Wendi Yan
Visual artist & filmmaker @ www.wendiyan.com
Wendi Yan (b. 1999, Beijing, CN/US) constructs speculative epistemologies through research-based worldbuilding, using CGI, game engines, and documentary practices to interrogate the boundaries of scientific imagination. Her work—spanning films, interactive media, and fictional archival installations—examines the embodied challenges of facing alien epistemic systems across time. Wendi collaborates frequently with scientists and engineers, from synthetic biology to astrophysics, to explore the frontier between science and entertainment, between imaging and imagining.
Wendi has or will exhibit at Ars Electronica Festival (Linz), Berlin Art Week, House of Electronic Arts (Basel), Samsung Vision Hall (Seoul), Hyundai Motorstudio (Beijing), Singapore Art Week, NEW INC (New York), TANK Shanghai, and Slash (San Francisco). She has spoken at the Gray Area Festival, Rhizome World, Trust, SeedAI x SXSW, X Museum, and Skywalker Ranch. Residencies include Eyebeam and the Arctic Circle Artist & Scientist Expedition.
Based in New York, Wendi holds an A.B. in History of Science from Princeton University, where she won the Horace H. Wilson ’25 Senior Thesis Prize in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, and a M.S. in Fiction and Entertainment from SCI-Arc. She was an inaugural member of the Steve Jobs Archive Fellowship (2023), created by Laurene Powell Jobs to support young creators between technology and liberal arts. Wendi was a NEW INC Y11 member in Creative Science, and most recently won the Grand Prix of the 6th VH Award by Hyundai Motor Group, Asia’s leading media art award.