Artists
China
Mia Zheng
Within Apertures
30.06.25 25.07.25
Mia Zheng is a conceptual visual artist, whose work explores and experiments the relationships across and among beings. Her discipline expands on filmmaking, photography, typography, linguistics, and performance art. She loves finding and contemplating perspectives in different place.
During her time at ´ace, Mia worked on a project that makes use of photography in an expanded way. Through analog photographs that she took both before her arrival to Buenos Aires and whilst she was here walking the city exploring the windows she encountered, Mia created Within Apertures, an installation that played with the idea of memory and its materialisation.
ARTIST STATEMENT
There are countless sayings and philosophies that use windows as metaphors for the world, for perception, and for human experience. A window is not just an architectural element; it can be a portal to another place, a framed view into a different reality, or, for some, an entire world contained within its borders. Having traveled around the globe, the more I see, the more I wonder: What is the real life? Windows shape the way we see; they reflect but separate, connect but refract. They do not exist in nature, yet even in natural settings, moments arise that feel like windows. Branches of trees interact with each other and become their own kind of “windows,” smearing the boundaries between inside and outside, real and reflected.
Reality often feels transparent yet impenetrable, reflecting and refracting depending on the angle of light and presence. I often lose myself in these moments of uncertainty, when clarity slips and gives way to questions. In photographing windows and ephemeral encounters, I capture the metaphysical in the mundane, in the feelings of fluid, fleeting, and complex. The images are not documentations or something abstract or distant, but as something embedded in everything: in time, in light, and in the spaces among ambience. Within Apertures is a window into my time of production and contemplation during the four-week artist residency here at Proyecto´ace. The processes in the making encapsulate moments I have passed through, times filled with observation, curiosity, and encounters with the unknown, while also extending forward and opening onto possibilities yet to unfold. The space holds both imprint and prospect, inviting you to enter a threshold where the boundaries between past and future, reality and recollection begin to dissolve. Here, reflection is not just an image but an ongoing process of becoming.
BIO
Mia Zheng
1994 | Canton, China
Lives and Honolulu, USA
EDUCATION
2016 | BA in Film Production, Emerson College, USA
2026 | MFA, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, USA
EXHIBITIONS
2024 | Contemporary Photography in Hawai‘i. Downtown Art Center, Honolulu, USA
2023 | 60th Annual Juried Competition Exhibition. Masur Museum, Monroe, USA
2023 | Is It Me? The Art Effect’s Trolley Barn Gallery, Poughkeepsie, USA
2023 | He waʻa he moku. He moku he waʻa. Kahilu Gallery, Waimea, USA
2022 | Body Talk. Target Gallery at the Torpedo Art Center, Alexandria, USA
Related Activities
Exhibitions, Open Studio
Of apertures, shores, and sweets…
Artistas en diálogo
23.07.25
On Wednesday, July 23, Proyecto´ace opened its doors to share with the public the processes of three artists: Mia Zheng (China–USA) and Ilana Diddams (USA), artists in residence, and Cecilia Luque (Argentina), a local artist invited to participate in the Carapantallas Project. This encounter between artists and the public allowed for an exploration of different creative universes connected by observation, affectivity, and the relationship with the contexts we inhabit.
In Within the Apertures, Mia Zheng transformed the space into a constellation of images that explore the window as a metaphor for perception, memory, and becoming. Her digitally manipulated analog photographs invited viewers to cross thresholds where past and future intertwine, mixing real negatives with digitally constructed negatives.
Ilana Diddams presented a work in progress that reflects on the urban history and material memory of the coast of the Río de la Plata. Through photolithographs and stones rescued from the Ecological Reserve, she proposed a sensitive dialogue with the architectural vestiges that shape the urban landscape of the Buenos Aires coast.
For her part, Cecilia Luque intervened in the Carapantallas Project with Sweet Chronicles, a work that combines solidarity, printmaking, and affective memory. Collages, texts, and drawings of homemade sweets conveyed an intimate gesture of care to the public space, while the artist shared with the audience sweets she had made herself to flavour an afternoon full of art and affection.
Exhibitions
Within Apertures
Mia Zheng
23.07.25 10.08.25
The culmination of Mia Zheng’s residency (China, lives in Hawaii, USA) was a multiple installation that the artist displayed in the Dialogue Space and in the Central Hall of the ´ace studio. Working with expanded photography, and also using what are normally considered intermediate results of the photographic process (negatives and slides), Mia articulated her images in different stages. In the artist’s own words:
There are countless sayings and philosophies that use windows as metaphors for the world, perception, and human experience. A window is not just an architectural element; it can be a portal to another place, a framed view of a different reality, or, for some, an entire world contained within its edges. After traveling around the world, the more I see, the more I wonder: what is real life? Windows shape the way we see; they reflect but separate, connect but refract. They do not exist in nature, and yet even in natural environments there are moments that feel like windows. Tree branches interact with each other and become their own kind of “windows,” blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, between the real and the reflected.
Reality often feels transparent yet impenetrable, reflecting and refracting depending on the angle of light and presence. I often lose myself in these moments of uncertainty, when clarity fades and gives way to questions. By photographing windows and ephemeral encounters, I seek to capture the metaphysical in the everyday, in those fluid, fleeting, and complex feelings. The images are not documentation or something abstract or distant, but something that is embedded in everything: in time, in light, and in the spaces that inhabit the atmospheres.
Within Apertures is a window into my time of production and contemplation during the four-week artist residency at Proyecto´ace. The creative processes encapsulate moments I have gone through, times filled with observation, curiosity, and encounters with the unknown, while also projecting forward, opening up to possibilities yet to unfold. This space contains both traces and the future, inviting you to cross a threshold where the boundaries between past and future, between reality and memory, begin to dissolve. Here, reflection is not just an image, but a continuous process of becoming. I have always considered history as a tool for understanding the present, and I believe that art can be an invaluable means of making the past visible.
