Cao Shuyi

1990

Guangzhou , China

Shuyi Cao is a New York-based artist whose practice explores alchemical approaches to material, matter, and knowledge osmosis. Through archaeological speculation and ecological fiction, she contemplates the porous plurality of relations between sciences, technocultures, mythologies, and cosmologies. Her multi-medium sculpture and installation traverse enormous and microscopic scales, involving more/less/other-than-human worlds. Her making methods synthesize dynamic spatiotemporal configurations and material transformations—from ceramic and glass making with wild clay, sand, minerals, and earth elements to digital fabrication such as 3D printing and virtual environment simulation. Combining hand-crafted objects, technological artifacts, and moving images, she creates paradoxical fossils—tangible and intangible—as portals to meditate on geotrauma, transcorporeal ecology, and prehistoric futurity.

Her work has been shown internationally, including at the Orange County Museum of Art, California (2025); the 11th National Biennale of Contemporary Sculpture, Quebec (2024); Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2024); Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); He Art Museum, Foshan (2023); Aranya Art Centre, Beidaihe (2023); Hyundai Motorstudio, Beijing (2023); Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2021); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2021); and NARS Foundation, New York (2021). Cao is a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute and founder of Transmaterial Lab. She has held residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMOCA), New Museum NEW INC, Banff Centre for the Arts, Guangdong Times Museum, and Power Station of Art, Shanghai.

In 2025, Post-Natural Oasis at Alisan Fine Arts New York marked the gallery's first collaboration with the artist.

BIOGRAPHY

2013 Bachelor of Laws, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
2016 Master in Public Administration, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
2018 MFA in Fine Arts, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA
MASS MoCA Studio Residency, North Adams, USA

2019 Workshop, Reconceptual Recipes, Civic Art Lab x GREENSPACE, New York, USA
2020 Lecturer, Design and Technology Department, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA

Guest Critic, Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA

Guest Speaker, BioArt, School of Visual Arts, New York, USA

Co-founder, Decompose, an experimental institute for art and science research, art-making, and education, USA
Workshop, Becoming Less and Less With No Relief, Taboo Transgression, USA

Workshop, Transcendence in Art & Science, The University of Applied Arts Vienna, USA

Workshop, Material Metamorphosis, MFA Fine Arts, Pratt Institute, New York, USA
2021 NARS Foundation International Artist Residency Program, New York, USA
Workshop, A Recipe for Decay, NEW INC Creative Science Popup, Pioneer Works, USA

Workshop, Radical Evolution, NEW INC Conference, New Museum, USA

2022 Visiting Assistant Professor, Communication Design Graduate Department, Pratt Institute, New York, USA

Founder, Transmaterial Lab, Pratt Graduate School of Design, New York, USA

Lecturer, Art, Design History and Theory, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA

Guest Speaker, BioArt, School of Visual Arts, New York, USA

Visual Arts Residency, Material Transformations, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, Canada

Artist Talk, Speculative Geology and the Hauntings of the Anthropocene, WU SPACE X Pro Helvetia,

Artist Talk, Signs, Minerals, Residues: An Experimental Conversation on Ecological Fictions and Affinity, X Museum

Artist Talk, Artificial Life, AI and Altered Nature: More-than-Human Assemblage, Chronus Art Center, HKUST, Aiiii Art Center, Hong Kong
2023 Artist talk, Topography of Decay, Asymmetry Art Foundation, London, UK

Artist Talk, Art Forums, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024

Biennale Nationale de Sculpture Contemporaine, Québec, Canada

2023

Undercurrent Softness, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Shanghai

2022

Moisture-Born, Egg-Born, With Scales, Without Scale, Agnes Varis Art Center, Urban Glass, New York

SELECTED DUO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025

Post-Natural Oasis, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, USA

2024

Re-Enchantment, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
Weirding Worlds, PODIUM, Hong Kong

2023

Strange Stranger, Para-Site, Hong Kong
How Far How Close, Aranya Art Center, Beidaihe, China
Metamorphic Ecosphere, Hyundai Motor Studio, Beijing, China
Seaward, TAG Art Museum, Qingdao, China
Tales of the South, He Art Museum, Shunde, China
Offworlds, YveYang Gallery, New York, USA
Learning to read from lips and stones, Below Grand Gallery, New York, USA
Melting Rock, Still Wind, Yamanaka Suplex, Osaka, Japan

Steadfastly Revise for the Standards in Nonproductive Construction

(Part II: Liquid Flow), Long March Space, Beijing, China
Terrains of Skin, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China

2022

Shadow Metabolism, Hazel and Robert Siegel Gallery, Pratt Institute, New York, USA
The Language of Mushrooms, Contemporary Gallery Kunming, Yunnan, China
Entangled: bio/media, Chronus Art Center, Shanghai, China
Chthonic Spoil, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada
Matter Matters, Chambers Fine Art, New York, USA
Crafting The Past From The Future, Fou Gallery, New York, USA

2021

Utterance, NARS Art Foundation, New York, USA
Reshape, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Do Not Black Out, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Blue Cables in Venetian Watercourse, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China

2019

Sub-being, 490 Atlantic Gallery, New York, USA
Let’s try listening again: 13th A.I.R. Biennial, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, USA

2018

Artificial River Has No Memories, Site-specific installation, MASS MoCA, North Adams, USA
Growing Pebbles, SLEEPCENTER Gallery, New York, USA
The Hybrid of Beings, Westbeth Gallery, New York, USA

SELECTED AWARDS & GRANTS

2021 Wang Shikuo Nomination Award, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China

Faculty Research Grant, Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School, New York, USA

2020 Creative Science Track at NEW INC, New Museum, New York, USA

Finalist, Hyundai Blue Prize, Beijing, China

2018 Community Outreach Grant, MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists Program, North Adams, USA

Silicate Soundscapes, UrbanGlass, New York, USA

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2023 Topography of Decay, Zine published with public programming supported by Asymmetry Art Foundation, London, Dec 2023

Speculative Geology, Paradoxical Kin, Essay publication, VARIOUS

ARTISTS, Pro Helvetia Magazine, JAN 31 2023

2022 Unloved Others, Biodesigned: Issue 10, 28 February, 2022

2021 As If They Were Thinking: New Aesthetics of ‘Thought’ in Machine

Learning, Art Machines: International Symposium on Computational Media Art, City University of Hong Kong, 2021

Soft Rot, Sweet Rot, Bitter Rot: The Politics of Decay, Heichi Magazine, 20 May 2021

The edge of life-as-we-know-it: Aesthetics of decay within artificial life and art, Technoetic Arts, Volume 19, Numbers 1-2, June 2021, pp. 185-201(17)

Like Vine, Like Ant, Like Fungus: Labor and Coexistence, writing published, LEAP