Nayeon Yang

Interdisciplinary Visual Artist

2025 Make a Wave

Visual Arts

Nayeon Yang (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and social service worker based in Chicago. She moved to the US from S. Korea in 2006 at the age of 24. Yang examines how social status, agency, and visibility shift across borders. Her work investigates systemic forms of foreignness and presence, and the relationship between labor and capital within the global economy.

Yang has exhibited at different venues, including NEIU art gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, Buddy at the Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago Artists Coalition, Roots and Culture, Co-Prosperity (Chicago), apexart (New York City), Weston Gallery (Cincinnati), PAB Open (Bergen), Latitude 53 (Edmonton), and Rund Gallery (Seoul). Yang received an MFA in Sculpture from Ohio State University, where she had her University Fellowship. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was a recipient of a merit fellowship, and is an alumna of residencies such as Center Program, Hatch, High Concept Labs, ACRE, Wassaic Project, and others.

Recently, she was awarded the Make a Wave award from 3Arts, an Individual Artists Program grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, SPARK Grants from the Chicago Artists Coalition, and an Individual Artists Support Grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Nayeon Yang's Website

Featured Artworks

A dark room lit by two projector on the floor. The projectors are displaying words on to two way mirror panels.

Tomorrow's News, 2022 Two-channel video installation: four two-way mirror panels, and two projectors. The text contains the histories of the rayon viscose industry in Asia, and Europe and North America Image by Nayeon Yang

Multi-channel video installation viewed through narrow window on a black wall in a gallery space.

A Night Visible to the Naked Eye, 2022 T-shirt sale and multi-channel video installation: Part Two-Multiple video footage of the hands of five migrant farm workers; live and recorded video of shoppers’ hands searching through T-shirts at the first site; two sites linked via live video feed Image by Nayeon Yang

In a dark room lit by a suspended lamp, three piles of t-shirts with Korean calligraphy on display. On the wall three small camera face those t-shirts.

A Night Visible to the Naked Eye, 2022 T-shirt sale and multi-channel video installation: Part One - Second-hand T-shirts manufactured in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and other countries; five Korean-language article excerpts on migrant-worker exploitation printed on the shirts. Image by Nayeon Yang

A split composition showing a photograph of a white long-sleeve shirt with text on the left and a page of text on the right. The right side contains English and Korean text excerpts about the silenced deaths of migrant workers from Nepal in South Korea

small monitors laid on the gallery floor each one depicting a different image.

Inverse Proportion: Art as (not) Labor, 2023 Participatory/collaborative project: collections of artists' work hours, expenses, income, and work-in-progress videos Image by Nayeon Yang

A white gallery wall with 30 QR codes pasted in a grid next to some wall text.

Inverse Proportion: Art as (not) Labor, 2023 Participatory/collaborative project: collections of artists' work hours, expenses, income, and work-in-progress videos Image by Nayeon Yang

The Audience, 2021 Multi-channel video installation Image by Nayeon Yang