Zadie Xa has developed an expansive practice that addresses the nature of diasporic identities, global histories, familial legacies and interspecies communication. She explores these themes through immersive installations that appeal to the sensory experience of the viewer, often incorporating painting, sculpture, textile, sound and performance elements. Born in Vancouver, Canada and now based in London, Xa draws upon her Korean heritage as she seeks to elevate narratives that have been erased or repressed by the West and occupying powers. For her, art offers a means to analyse socio-political conditions and cultural behaviours through a lens of masquerade, play, costuming and storytelling. Embracing a highly collaborative mode of working, she has developed ongoing exchanges with dancers and musicians, and has worked closely with the artist Benito Mayor Vallejo since 2006.
Cultivating a heavily research-based way of working, Xa takes inspiration from diverse global references: from the history of art and craft, to speculative fiction, pop culture, music and fashion. Korean folklore and mythology, in particular, offer rich visual and narrative traditions that inform her interdisciplinary practice, providing her projects with a ‘skeleton or backbone’ that, she explains, allows her to ‘create points of linking myself to other artists and a timeline in history.’ She highlights matrilineal and women-led practices within these traditions, such as Korean shamanism, to envisage new social arrangements and ways of relating to the natural world, positioning her work towards today’s pressing ecological questions. These varied references are reconceived through an autobiographical framework to establish a deeply personal mythology, epitomised by the motifs that recur across her paintings, costumes and sculptures; Xa’s Pekingese dog is reimagined as a haetae (a creature who passes moral judgement in Korean folklore), while shells collected by the artist on Jeju Island in South Korea are conceived as symbols of nomadic identity, understood as organic structures that previously housed the bodies of other creatures.
Over the years, diverse modes of textile production have become a central strand in Xa’s practice. Clothes and costumes are worn in performance and presented as standalone pieces. In turn, multicoloured patchwork frames referencing traditional Korean quilting techniques, such as bojagi, often surround her paintings. Inspired by traditional Korean garments and techniques, as well as the fashion trends familiar to the artist from her upbringing in Canada, the costumes materialise her exploration of diasporic identities by addressing the role of fashion in self-presentation. ‘Clothing allows you to change who you are,’ says Xa. ‘It mediates the person that you, on that particular day, wish to present to the world.’ When making the items of clothing, she thinks ‘about ideas of magic and shapeshifting, the idea of being a person in the diaspora, or anybody involved with identity politics: the idea of changing form, changing who you are.’
Zadie Xa trained at the prestigious Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, earning a BFA in 2007, before receiving an MFA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 2014. In 2022, the Whitechapel Gallery commissioned Xa’s largest solo exhibition to take place in London to date, House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness (2022–23). Other solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have taken place at The Box, Plymouth (2022); Leeds Art Gallery (2021); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2020); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2019); Tramway, Glasgow (2019); Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku (2019); Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Mexico City (2018); Union Pacific, London (2018); and Pump House Gallery, London (2017).
In 2019, Xa was invited to contribute to the performance program curated by Ralph Rugoff with Aaron Cezar for the 58th Venice Biennale. Recent performances have since been staged by Xa at The National Gallery, London (2021; in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo and curated by Priyesh Mistry), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2020), and Tramway, Glasgow (2019), with earlier performances taking place at the Southbank Centre (2018; commissioned by the Hayward Gallery), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018), and Serpentine Gallery, London (2016). Xa’s work has been featured in numerous international group exhibitions, including those at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2023); Institute of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles (2022); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Roma (MACRO), Rome (2022); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver (2021); Arnolfini, Bristol (2019); and MoMA PS1 (2018). She participated in the Jeju Biennale in 2022 and the 13th Shanghai Biennale in 2021. Xa’s work is held in the collections of the Arts Council, British Council and CRC Foundation.
2024
Rough hands weave a knife, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Marais, France
2023
Nine Tailed Tall Tales: Trickster, Mongrel, Beast, Space K Seoul, South Korea
2022
House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
Long ago when tigers smoked, cur. by Nicoletta Lambertucci, The Box, Plymouth, UK
2021
Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers, Leeds Art Gallery, UK
2020
Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers, cur. by Rose Bouthiller, Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada
2019
Child Of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creatoin, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK
Child Of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation, Tramway, Glasgow, UK
Child Of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan
2018
Soju Sipping on a Sojourn to Saturn, Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Mexico City, Mexico
HOMEBOY 3030: Return the Tiger 2 the Mountain, Union Pacific, London, UK
2017
The Conch, Sea Urchin and Brass Bell, organised by PS/Y for Hysteria 2017, Pump House Gallery, London, UK
2021
Scorpion, in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo, curated by Priyesh Mistry, The National Gallery, London, UK
2020
Dream Dangerous, in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo, Jia-Yu Corti and Ophelia Liu, presented with Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Frieze 2020: The Institute of Melodic Healing, curated by Victor Wang, No. 9 Cork Street, London, UK
2019
Child of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation, Dance International Glasgow, Tramway, Glasgow, UK
Child of Magohalmi and the Echoes of Creation, Art Night 2019, curated by Helen Nisbet, co-commissioned by Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan, Tramway, Glasgow, UK, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK and Walthamstow Library, London, UK
Grandmother Mago, performed in 58th Venice Biennale performance programme curated by Ralph Rugoff with Aaron Cezar and produced by Delfina Foundation, Venice, Italy
2018
Flooded with ICE/Hellfire Can't Scorch Me, commissioned by the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK
Iridezcent Interludez, performed as part of DO D!STURB performance art festival, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2017
Perfumed Purple Rice and Sateen Songs for Sadie, performed as part of GUEST, GHOST, HOST: MACHINE! Marathon, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK
The Sea Child, Octopus and Brass Bell, performed in Rehearsals from the Korean Avant-Garde Performance Archive, Korean Cultural Centre UK
Crash Boom Hisssssss. Legend of the Liquid Sword, performed in Block Universe 2017, Somerset House Studios, London, UK
2016
Basic Instructions B4 Leaving, organised by PS/Y for Hysteria 2017, Cafe OTO, London, UK
Linguistic Legacies and Lunar Exploration, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK
Word for Water is Whale, in Ways of Knowing: Imagining Other Futures, curated by Jane Scarth, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
Moon Poetics 4 Courageous Earth Critters and Dangerous Day Dreamers 2020, for ASSEMBLY 2020: New Works, Somerset House Studios, London, UK
A Sojourn Through Saturn and Across the Southern Sea, commissioned sound work by Stella Bottai and Lucia Pietroiusti for Cold Protein podcast
2025
Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2024
Make a Wish, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
2023
Beautiful Repair: Mending in Art and Fashion, Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark
The New Bend, curated by Legacy Russell, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK
Myths of Our Time, with Heemin Chung and Sun Woo, Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul, South Korea
2022
Flowing Moon, Embracing Land, Jeju Biennale 2022, South Korea
The Horror Show, co-curated by Claire Catterall with Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Somerset House Studios, London, UK
The New Bend, cur. by Legacy Russell, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, USA
Soy Dreams of Milk, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
House Spirits, with Hernan Bas, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, USA
The Condition of Being Addressable, curated by Marcelle Joseph and Legacy Russell, ICA LA, USA
Wonder Woman, curated by Kathy Huang, Deitch Projects, New York City, USA; then travelling to Deitch Projects, Los Angeles, USA
Lee Scratch Perry The Orbzerver, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Roma (MACRO), Rome, Italy
The New Bend, curated by Legacy Russell, Hauser and Wirth, New York City, USA
2021
Painting in Person, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marcella Beccaria, Castillo di Rivoli, Italy
Sweat, curated by Anna Schneider and Raphael Fonseca, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
Bodies of Water, in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo, 13th Shanghai Biennale 2021, curated by Andrés Jaque, You Mi, Marina Otero Verzier, Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos, Shanghai, China
Wishbone Vision, Anthea Hamilton, Sofia Al Maria and Zadie Xa with Benito Mayor Vallejo, Project Native Informant, London, UK
Interior Infinite, The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada
Diaspora Pavilion 2, curated by IFC, Campbelltown Arts Centre, New South Wales, Australia
2020
Bodies of Water, 13th Shanghai Biennale 2021, curated by Andrés Jaque, You Mi, Marina Otero Verzier, Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos, Shanghai, China
Siembra, presented by Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Kurimanzutto Mexico City, Mexico
2019
Feedback Loops, curated by Miriam Kelly, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne, Australia
STILL I RISE: FEMINISMS, GENDER, RESISTANCE, ACT 3, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
STILL I RISE: FEMINISMS, GENDER, RESISTANCE, ACT 2, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-upon-Sea, UK
2018
Body Armor, curated by Jocelyn Miller, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York, USA
Blessed Be: Spirituality, Mysticism, and the Occult in Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Arizona, USA
Four Pillars, with Hanna Hur, Laurie Kang and Maia Ruth Lee, L’INCONNUE, Montréal Canada
2016
The Rose is without a 'why'. It blooms because it blooms, curated by Sean Steadman, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York City, USA
At Home Salon: Double Acts, Marcelle Joseph Projects, Ascot, UK
With institutions like these, curated by Victor Wang and Alex Meurice, Averard Hotel, London, UK
2015
Living Room in the Tropics, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore
Silent Barn, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Video Nacht Klub, Brussels Art Department, Belgium
Space Station 51, Area 51, London, UK
Faux Sho, Assembly House, Leeds, UK
Studio Voltaire Open: 2015, selected by Cory Archangel and Hanne Mugaas, Studio Voltaire, London, UK
2014
Frosted and Defrosted, Albion 44, London, UK
Inoperative Mythology, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London, UK
2011
Premio Ibercaja Pintura Joven 2010, Centro Ibercaja Guadalajara, Centro Cultural Ibercaja Huesca, Museo Camon Aznar, Zaragoza, Spain
2010
Premio Ibercaja Pintura Joven 2010, Fundación Fran Daurel de Barcelona, Museo Maeztu de Estella, Navarra, Spain