Yue Nakayama works with video, text and installation. Her practice is centered on reinterpreting minor histories, memories and personal anecdotes to stage an absurd intervention that disrupts our social expectations and perceptions. Using narrative as a foundation, her projects encompass diverse topics, with recurring themes including belief systems, power dynamics and issues surrounding cultural, gender and societal identities.

Her work has been exhibited and screened at museums and film festivals including Onion City Film Festival, Ilinois, White Columns, New York, Diverse Works, Texas, Contemporary Art Center New Orleans, Visual Art Center UT Austin, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and ICA Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship from the Houston Center of Photography, the Programmer’s Award from the Athens International Film Festival, the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund from the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The fellowships and residencies she has attended include Skowhegan, the Core Program, Vermont Studio Center, OX-Bow, and Lighthouse Works. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Peripheral Visions and Glasstire.

Areas of Expertise

Lens and time-based media; performance; installation; text

Education

2016 — Master of Fine Arts from University of Pennsylvania

2012 — Bachelor of Fine Arts from Denison University

Courses Recently Taught

This course enables students to explore digital media while engaging in aesthetic and conceptual practices in contemporary art. They come to understand the fundamentals of visual form and to develop technical skills with a variety of camera and computer tools, including still-image and video-editing programs. Personal studio projects cover a variety of subjects, such as the relationship between the arts, popular culture and the liberal arts; the historic role of technology in the arts; and the role of one's cultural and historical context in the creation and interpretation of artwork. Through theory and practice, students enhance their art-criticism skills, allowing for productive group interactions and the defining of personal aesthetic vision. Presentations and demonstrations by the professor are supplemented by student research and response to contemporary artists and issues. At least 10 hours of work per week outside of class is required. This counts toward the introductory course requirement for the major. No prerequisite. Offered every semester.