Hussel Zhu is a visual artist, researcher, and short story writer, born and raised in a formerly secluded area of Shanghai. Since 2019, he has studied and worked in the Netherlands. As an Asian immigrant and artist, he examines his function and dysfunction in a European social context, viewing dysfunction as the ability to detect and highlight the absurdity of existing rules, although he often feels like a court jester (hofnar' in Dutch). He embraces the sense of cultural dislocation and translation failures in cross-cultural contexts and allows these misunderstandings into his work. He frequently reflects on the distance between himself and his native culture, as it quietly fades into his country. He likes to observe feelings of suppression and shame and tries to express them elegantly. His work mainly surrounds with installation, performance, drawing, sculpture, video.
