Sophia Wang

Artist and Writer in San Francisco, California

Sophia Wang

Artist and Writer in San Francisco, California

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My creative practice takes the form of collaborations with performance artists, writers, and visual and sound artists to create multimedia, movement-based works. I am co-founder of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company and have danced for artists Tino Sehgal, Xavier Le Roy, Jérôme Bel, Amara Tabor-Smith, and Xandra Ibarra.

I earned a PhD in English from U.C. Berkeley, and integrate my research and performance practices through writing and curation focused on critical somatics: thinking with and as bodies.

My curatorial project, The Centre for Emotional Materiality (CEM), was presented in 2018 at Southern Exposure in San Francisco. A collaboration with multimedia artist Surahi Saraf, CEM is a site for research on digital technologies with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and its relationship to our bodies and emotions.

With artist and educator Lisa Rybovich Crallé, I co-produce Heavy Breathing, a series of critical somatics workshops. The series has received support from Southern Exposure's Alternative Exposure Award, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, the SF Art Book Fair, and the YBCA Fellows Program. Heavy Breathing A/V, an expansion of the live event series via downloadable and streamable audio tracks, launched in 2018 at YBCA Public Square, the Bangkok Biennial, and Meme Space (Taipei).

With artist and inventor Phil Ross, I co-founded MycoWorks, a biomaterials company that creates fine mycelium leather for fashion, footwear, and beyond.

Photo credit: Lisa Rybovich Crallé

  • Work
    • www.heavyheavybreathing.com
  • Education
    • University of California, Berkeley
    • Columbia University