(China)

Zihao/Hazel Mei is a Chinese artist, academic tutor, and landscape and communication designer based in Edinburgh with a deep passion for exploring the intersection of art, design, and the built environment. By integrating her multidisciplinary background, she seeks to create works that transcend boundaries, provoke dialogue, and encourage people to reconsider their own relationship with the spaces they inhabit.
Her artistic practice is rooted in the idea of capturing and expressing the emerging experiences that arise from the particular moments of being in a place. Walking and mapping serve as powerful research and creation tools in her creation for understanding the spatial-temporal dimensions, materiality, and intersectionality of these experiences. Throughout recent years, she has come to view her practice as not only a way of observing the world but also as a process of self-exploration. She delves into questions of identity, particularly in relation to gender, ethnicity, culture, and emotion. By engaging with the aesthetics, spatiality, and temporality of a place through walking and being in it, she is acutely aware of the intricate ways in which issues of power, control, and privilege manifest. These considerations deeply inform her artistic expression and provoke critical reflection on the complex dynamics of the surroundings.