Shi Yangkun (b.1992, China) is an artist currently based in Shanghai. His practice examines the legacies of socialism and colonialism through engagements with archives, objects, locations, and materials. By activating the past, he interrogates the power structures and visual perspectives embedded within dominant historical narratives, and the ways in which they continue to shape the present.

Group Exhibitions

2025, Present, Solo Exhibition, Chapter 6, Shanghai

Currents, Auf den Spuren der deutschen Kolonialvergangenheit in China, Forschungscampus Dahlem, Berlin

DBN Prelude: Decolonial Gaze, Goethe Institut, Beijing

Recreate the East, A4 Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2024, Colonial Ghosts - Resistant Spirits: Church, Colonialism and Beyond, Museum Nikolaikirche, Stadtmuseum Berlin

Workshop: Colonial Translocations of Plants and Taste, Gropius Bau

Media, Style and Identity in Contemporary Photography, X-Museum, Changsha

2023, Asia Pioneer Photographer Foundation, Dali International Photography Exhibition

Reconstructing Light and Shadow, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art

2022, Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China, Peabody Essex Museum, USA

2021, Common Breath, The INCHINA Forum, Incheon, Korea

2020, NORMALISED ABNORMAL, Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, China

2019, TOP20 Chinese Contemporary Photographer, Zhejiang Art Museum, China

2018, Social Geography: Ten Journeys with a Camera, Shanghai Center of Photography

Pubilc Collections

Peabody Essex Museum

Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation

Zhejiang Art Museum

Photography Museum of Lishui