Born and raised in the industrial hub of Dongguan, China, huiyin zhou 徽音 (they/she) is a transnational queer feminist organizer and community-based photographer, writer, translator and multimedia artist. They are based in Durham, NC and NYC. They work with digital and analog photography, text, installation, and performance. Photographing with intimate and tender sensibilities, huiyin explores themes related to queer feminism, intimacy, memory, diaspora, and community and approaches photography with a relational, reciprocal praxis.
huiyin’s 300-page prose collection 北极时间 was published by Shanghai Lit & Art Press in 2019. Their works are forthcoming in positions: asia critique, The Seventh Wave, and Scholar & Feminist Online; they have been published by The Common, Tupelo Quarterly, Apogee, Irrelevant Press, Massachusetts Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Sine Theta Magazine, Feminist Center for Creative Work, and unCoVer Initiative. huiyin also served as an editor for unCoVer Initiative (2020-21) and was editor-in-chief for Margins (2021-23). Other than photography and writing, huiyin co-founded and co-directs a queer feminist art and activist collective, Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective. They are a 2024-25 resident at Durham Art Guild, a Fall 2024 Digital Resident at The Seventh Wave, and were a 2023-24 resident at BRIClab: Contemporary Art Disability Artistry as a co-leading artist for CAO.
huiyin has received accolades such as SEEK Raleigh (2024-25, Raleigh NC), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2024), Queens Art Fund Arts Access Grant (2024, NYC), John Hope Franklin Documentary Award (2023, Durham, NC), Benenson Award in the Arts (2023, NC), What Can We Do? Community Art Grant (2023, Asian American Arts Alliance, NYC), Dora Anne Little Service Award (2023), and Budding Writer 文学新苗(2019, Guangdong Writers’ Association, China). huiyin has held talks at University of California Irvine, University of Oklahoma, Wesleyan University, Duke University, Pratt Institute, Hamilton College, Durham Arts Council, ChineseFeminism, and alpha nova & galerie future (Germany). Their work has been exhibited at BRIC (NYC), Old Stone House (NYC), Durham Art Guild (NC), Durham Arts Council (NC), Center for Documentary Studies (NC), Beall Center for Art + Technology (CA), Three River Arts Festival (PA), Center for the Arts Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery (CT), and Duke Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity (NC).
contact: huiyin -dot- zhou01 -at- gmail -dot- com
instagram: @huiyin.zhou
photo by Laura Dudu, Sept 2024, Brooklyn NYC
photo by Toby Tenenbaum, April 2024, BRICLab Contemporary Art studio