born in shanghai
live in berlinYanting Xiong (she/her) is an architect working at the intersection with visual art and beyond. Born and grew up in Shanghai, along the flow of the Yangtze River, her work focuses on the complex and fluid relation of human and environment. Her practice engage themes of female body and identity, researching the interconnection between human and more-than-human beings based on collective participation and storytelling.
Her work explores three distinct bodies of physical identity: spatial practice (architecture and gardening); research-based painting and sculpture (ceramic); and language (critical reading and translation in groups). She creates fragments, gestures, and ecologies that challenge rigid boundaries and reimagine belonging. Yanting currently lives and works in Berlin, fostering roots in her garden.
Index
2026 rhizoo gardening, female making practices, Luckenwalde, spatial practice
2026 on ecological sculpture, Berlin, research and installation series
2026 Nichigetsu Restaurant with Studio Inhalt, Berlin, wood production and interior installation
2025 She didn’t know how strong she ‘are’, installation, Global Gallery, Grabowsee, residency
2025 Plant on crack, Berlin, research and drawings
2025 Ilmer Thies Architekt*innen, Berlin, design consultant
2024 Plant Magic Issue 2 - Weeds, in between speaking and remaining silence, Berlin, publication
2024 Plant Magic Issue 2 - Weeds, Zabriskie Bookshop, Berlin, lauching reading performance
2024 Ilmer Thies Architekt*innen, material circulation research for the renovation of Jelmoli Shopping Mall, Zurich, design research and book publishing
2021-2025 Ilmer Thies Architekt*innen, Berlin and Zurich, full-time architect
2021 Kollaborative Intelligenz. Reallabor Hagenmarkt, Wie Zirkulieren Ideen?, Braunschweig, online talk and Publication
2020 Critical Publishing with Colorama Print, Braunschweig, workshop
2019 City Captive Atmospheres, Studio Nicolas Dorval-Bory, Porto Academy, Porto, summer school design workshop
2019 Encounters with alternative economies and IT, with silk weaving, temples and complex human settlements, with DAAD travel fellowship, south india, field trip and publication
2019 Critical Mapping Praxis: Zum Beispiel Gorleben. Über Die Vergangenheit, Gegenwart Und Zukunft Des Widerstands Gegen Hegemonialmächte, Braunschweig, mapping performance
2018 Property and Ownership I – Über den Gebrauchs- und Tauschwert des Wohnens, Stuck e.V., Berlin, publication
2017 Atelier Xük, Shanghai, architect, design study and competition
2016 Overflowing and Mutualism, in common space of Tianlin Worker’s village, Tongji University Press, Shanghai, design research and publication
2016 Summer Workshop tea house design, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, collective design workshop
2016 Ordinary Metropolis — Shanghai: a Model of Urbanism, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, exhibition co-curator