Yihao Zhang is a London-based installation artist whose practice centres on kinetic sculpture, mechanical structures and performance-oriented environments. Working primarily with metal, motors and industrial components, he constructs choreographed systems that examine the relationship between power, discipline and queer embodiment. His work is informed by critical theory, particularly Michel Foucault’s writing on disciplinary power, yet remains grounded in the physical experience of space, movement and constraint.

Rooted in his experience as a queer artist who grew up in China and is now based in the UK, Zhang’s practice examines how social norms and control systems are internalised and written onto the body. Through repetition, obstruction and choreographed pathways, his installations stage confrontations between individual agency and structural regulation, shifting viewers from passive observers to active participants and inviting reflection on self-surveillance, compliance and resistance.

Zhang has developed and presented his work across the UK and internationally, His installations and performances have been shown at venues in the UK including Barbican Center (UK), Filet Gallery (UK), Pink Gallery (UK), Hypha Studio(UK), The Koppel Project(UK), Peckham Audio(UK), Artsect Gallery(UK), Not For Sale Gallery(UK), Apsara Studio Gallery(UK). As as well as Untitled Gallery (DE), New Fears Gallery (DE).

Education

Beijng Film Academy
BA Fine Art 
(Film Props and Product Design)
2019-2023

Royal College of Art
MA Fine Art
(Information Experience Design)
2023-2024

Group Shows

2026
Forms before dissolving
Apsara Studio Gallery
London, UK

2026
Self-Service Ascension Center
New Fears Gallery
Berlin, DE

2026
Sedulous
LumiNoir ART Gallery
London, UK

2026
Rebuilt Babel (Berlin)
Untitled Gallery
Berlin, DE

2026
Rebuilt Babel (London)
Artsect Gallery - Art’Otel
London, UK

2025
Nothing Holds On Its Own
The Koppel Project
London, UK

2025
Meal Deal
Filet Gallery
London, UK

2025
Winter Wars
Not For Sale Gallery
London, UK

2025
Roots Of Roots
Filet Gallery
London, UK

2025
Stay With The Murmur
Pink Gallery
Manchester, UK

2025
Moments Of Grammatical Collapse
Aspace gallery(Dfff Studio)
London, UK

2024
Into The Flux
Ibart London
London, UK

2024
Intersecting Beings
Hypha Studios
London, UK

2024
MAP making
Silk Theater, Barbican Center
London, UK

2024
Specctra 001
Peckham Audio
London, UK

2024
Royal college of art MA degree show
Royal college of art
London, UK

2024
Royal college of art MA Mid-term show
Royal college of art
London, UK

2023
Beijing film academy BA degree show
Beijing film academy
Beijing, CN

2023
Young Artist Diary Exhibition (SFK)
Enjoy Art Museum
Beijing, CN

Press

‘Yihao Zhang is Constructing New Realities from Mixed Mediums’, 
COLD Magazine,
by Lauren Bulla
2026

‘Nervous Systems: Yihao Zhang’,
 Plasma Contemporary,
by Anna Moss
2026

‘Yihao Zhang’s Unsettled Machines’, 
Elephant Magazine, 
by Emily Burke
2026


‘Yihao Zhang Systems of Weight: on Knowing Control’, 
Metal Magazine,
by Lucy Seniz
2025

‘Functioning in Cages: Yihao Zhang’s Mechanical Resisters’,
1883 Magazine
2025