Wang Xue Sophia


王雪


Photography


Performance

        致梭梭树的歌         掌纹里的面粉


Choreographic Research

        Move Beyond Circle


Visual Ethnography

  • Photo Survey of Africans in Guangzhou 广漂非洲人影像调查

Writing Journal

  • Red Henna, a plant from Western China 红色海娜，一种长在西部的植物 

Collaborative Project

  • The Remote Archivist #7: The Curatorial Programme-Missing Archive
  • Collective Sharing between F.I.R.E and "An inventory of Sound and Heritage" groups (Performance)
  • While Kitchen-ing Festival
  • Cactus Press
  • While-kitchening


Freelancer Commissions

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Portfolio & CV
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Please Dance Happily and Freely

欢乐地跳吧 


2023 — 2026
Multimedia installation  22′59″



“Please dance happily and freely” becomes both a cheerful command and a quiet provocation: Who are we dancing for—response or resistance?
Approaching square dancing as a form of social theatre, the exhibition examines how bodies are disciplined through collective performance while simultaneously producing subtle modes of resistance. Presented as a video installation, the work traces the circulation and reconfiguration of Mai Dance across different cities and embodied experiences.
Movement trajectories of the dancers are projected from the ceiling onto the floor, inviting viewers to physically follow, mimic, or cross these paths—transforming spectatorship into a shared, embodied experience that navigates the shifting boundary between discipline and freedom.

Flour in the Palm Lines

掌纹里的面粉

2026
Performative Lecture 32′22″


This is a story about flour, dough, and the act of kneading. Sophia will share her memories of yoúxiāng, beef noodles, and bread — and the experiences of sitting at three different tables — tracing forms of knowledge carried in the body, transmitted through watching, and sustained across time. After the performance, we will knead the dough together.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

这是一个关于面粉、面团与揉面的故事。我分享关于油香、牛肉面与面包的记忆，以及坐在三张不同餐桌前的经历——追溯那些藏在身体里的知识，那些通过观看传递、跨越时间延续下来的动作。
这场表演性讲座通过一系列简单的行动展开：洗手、揉面。在口述性的反思与具身性的重复之间表演，探讨那些无需正式教导便被习得的知识形式，表演聚焦于在面粉嵌入掌纹的质感、揉面的节奏，以及身体动作在时间中持续存在的状态之中。观众被邀请见证，聆听、嗅闻，触摸面团。

A Song to the Saksaul Trees
 
致梭梭树的歌

2024
Performative

I sent a song back to its homeland, inscribed the music score on a desert fence, and presented a screening to the Saksaul trees, narrating the story of the Tirek Bostan.

我将歌声送回到故乡，在沙漠围栏上留下乐谱，给梭梭树做了一场放映，告诉他们绿洲胡杨的故事。

Henna 

海娜

2018-2022
96 pages, 200*185mm, photo book



I traveled between Xining and Guangzhou. I turned my camera toward families to look for traces of changes in traditional ways of living. I also wandered around Guangzhou's "Xiaobei," an enclave of Muslim immigrants from the northwest, pondering the uncertainty that arises when multiple cultures collide: will cultural pluralism become more visible or disappear?
Then I began to use the red color of henna as a visual guide to weave together my fragmented memories: red prayer mats, candies with Arabic printed on the packaging, crimson dates, pink hijabs, scarlet burqa, and high heels. These are the moments that give me a sense of happiness and belonging, or perhaps the metaphors that subtly carry a sense of pain. The inside and the outside of the window represent two kinds of ending for henna: staying in the traditional way of living or getting out of it.
I have talked to many young Muslim girls and taken portraits of them. We have discussed topics that should have remained hidden, like hijab, period, sex, taboos, and love.
我辗转于西宁和广州两地，将相机对准家庭，去寻找传统生活发生改变的痕迹。或是流连于广州“小北”这样一个属于西北穆斯林移民的“飞地”，思考多元文化碰撞后所产生的文化不确定性：更加显现，抑或是消失。
我开始以海娜的红色作为视觉线索去串联那些碎片化的记忆。红色的礼拜毯、印着阿拉伯语的糖果、深红色的椰枣、粉红色的头巾、绛红色的巴服、高跟鞋。那些让我幸福的可以寻觅到归属的瞬间，又或者是隐隐做痛的隐喻本身。窗户内外，看上去是海娜的两种归宿：停留在传统生活中，又或者出走。
我与许多年轻的穆斯林女孩交谈，并为她们拍摄肖像。我们讨论那些隐匿的话题，关于头巾、关于月经、关于性、关于禁忌、关于爱情。


Xiaobei Passport


小北护照




Since the COVID in 2020, international transit has been hampered, foreign trade has suffered many difficulties and many Africans living in Guangzhou had to leave.
I bought some African merchandise with customized images that represented the desire for a better life in Guangzhou: pink plastic diamonds, luxury items with big logos, skyscrapers, and overpasses, sunny young people in football uniforms, and successful men and women in decent dresses. But the truth was that these visions of beauty were sealed away in a foreign country and became a collection of wandering images. In the windows of abandoned shops in Xiaobei, Guangzhou, covered in dust.
2020年疫情以来，国际运输受阻，对外贸易遭遇重创，很多在广州生活的非洲人不得不离开。几经周折，我在广州买到了一些带有定制形象的非洲商品，这些形象代表了对美好生活的向往：粉色塑料钻、大大的Logo的奢侈品、摩天大楼和立交桥、穿着足球服的年轻人、成功男士和女士。但事实是，这些美好的想象被封存在异国他乡，成了一幅幅飘零的图像，挂在广州小北废弃商铺的橱窗里，布满灰尘。


Letters from Guangzhou to Bamako

巴马科广州来信

2022
115*165mm，Comprehensive materials



One day at the end of the summer of 2022, I suddenly learned that the following day Damei and Xiaomei's family would be going back to Bamako, so I went to say goodbye to them. I offered Damei and Xiaomei a set of postcards before we parted ways, and they told me that they wished to meet again in the future.
After the family left, I continued to stroll around the vicinity of the Tianxiu building and the swimming pool, watching the planes flying over as if nothing had changed. Only one thing has changed, those kids who made wishes when planes flew by were now no longer here.
在2022年夏天结尾的一天，我突然得知大美小美一家将于第二天返回巴马科，我前往她们家送行。离别之际我将一套明信片送给大美和小美，小美向我许下重逢的心愿。
她们一家离开后，我依然会去天秀大厦闲逛，坐在天秀泳池旁边，看到有飞机飞过天秀大厦上空，一切如旧。只是缺少了那些对着飞机许愿的孩子们。


The Sea of Stars

星宿海

2019-2021



How does one envision a river? Is it a frontier or a border, an imagined community or the birthplace of civilization? How do the land and the river relate to our embodied experiences? How many tales of the other are lost to history and washed away by the river?
I imagined a journey to the Kunlun Mountains, the source of the Yellow River, from my memories and family archives. From ancient times to the present, the folk myths of the Yellow River's ethnic minorities, or the daily lives of the people along its banks, as well as the imagination of this river community given by various subjects ...I try to explore the psychology of people's worship of the Yellow River and trace the cultural memory and imagination of its source.
人们是如何想象一条河流的？它是边疆还是边界？是一个想象的共同体还是文明的发源地？这片土地和河流与我们的身体体验有何关联？有多少关于他者的传说湮没在历史长河中，被河流冲走？
我从记忆和家族档案出发，想象了一次前往黄河源头昆仑山的旅程。从古至今，黄河少数民族的民间神话，沿岸人民的日常生活，以及不同叙事赋予这个河流共同体的想象……我试图探究人们对黄河崇拜的心理，追溯其源头的文化记忆与想象。


The Comb Stone


梳起石

2021



Through performance and installation, I hope to transform the depiction of the self-comb women in the early 20th-century periodicals and pictorials into images with a surrealist touch, with an attempt to explore the localized and diverse gender equality practices spontaneously generated by women in the Third World outside of the Western feminist perspective—how women reflect on and empower themselves through religion and surrealism, in order to awaken their own self-awareness.
我希望通过行为和置景，将二十世纪的近代报刊与画报中对自梳女的描述转化为具有超现实主义风格的图像，旨在探讨西方女性主义视角之外，第三世界女性自发产生的本土化、多样的性别平等实践的意义——女性借助如何宗教与超现实主义，对自身进行反思与赋权，以探求女性自我意识觉醒的道路。