in situ: Zadie Xa

Zadie Xa (b. 1983, Vancouver) is an artist of Korean-Canadian descent who works in London. Her multidisciplinary practice explores issues like identity, folklore, and the transmission of the cultural heritage of the diaspora through storytelling, performance, and immersive installation. Based on Korean mythology, shamanistic ritual, science fiction, and her own experiences, Xa builds multisensory environments in which charlatans and hybrid beings disrupt the prevailing historical account. Her recent solo exhibitions at venues like the Whitechapel Gallery in London, Space K in Seoul, and Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris showcase the artist’s interest in interspecies communication, symbols of protection and transformation, and the spiritual importance of territory and place. Through painting, textile, sculpture, sound, and performance, Xa merges the construction of fantastical worlds with political and metaphysical inquiry.

Xa’s work has been shown at major international institutions, like MoMA PS1, Palais of Tokyo, Haus der Kunst, and the Venice Biennale, where she participated in the 2019 performance program. Several of her notable collaborations with artist Benito Mayor Vallejo have even further expanded her inquiry around costumes, masks, and the archetype of the charlatan. In 2025, Xa was a finalist for the Turner Prize, one of the most prestigious contemporary art awards in the United Kingdom, for her collaborative installation presented at the 16th Sharjah Biennial, Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything. Through affective forms and multiple layers, Xa builds a space where ancestral knowledge, speculative fiction, and cultural recovery converge.