Grantee Database

WANG Yisheng

• 2026
• Theater
• Taiwan to United States

To immerse himself in New York City’s vibrant theatre and museum culture and deepen his understanding of current trends in projection design for the performing arts. Wang proposes a fellowship that will expose him to local practices and trends in performing arts projection design. He aims to attend performances on Broadway and find opportunities to closely observe theater productions from behind the scenes. Wang hopes that the immersive experience is one from which he will learn new techniques, be taken out of his comfort zone, and return to Taiwan inspired.

Alex YIU

• 2026
• Music
• Hong Kong to United States

To research New York’s underground queer experimental music scene and develop comparative perspectives on experimental club cultures. Yiu will immerse himself in New York’s experimental and queer music communities, attending events at established venues, as well as grassroots and queer spaces. Yiu will also join workshops, reading groups, and community discussions to understand how artists and organizers create safety, access, and collective care in nightlife. He plans to have conversations with musicians, producers, and writers about queer nightlife, grassroots music label ecology, and DJ communities, and especially how the Asian diaspora and New York club culture intersect. An innovator, Yiu anticipates that the experience will influence his future projects in music and contemporary art.

Karen YU

• 2026
• Music
• Hong Kong to United States

To explore New York’s ecosystem of independent artists and entities, cross-disciplinary communities, and institutions, examining how support structures and audience engagement shape creative practices in performance and sound. Yu’s research will focus on how organizations of different scales collaborate, sustain artistic production, and cultivate audiences open to experimental or unfamiliar listening. Performances, exhibitions, public programs, and informal gatherings will serve as key sites of study, while conversations with artists, curators, and programmers will offer insight into support systems and community-building approaches shaped within the dense environment of New York. Insights into these curatorial strategies and listening-focused experiences will inform her curatorial practice and efforts to develop inclusive, accessible listening spaces and approaches.

TAN Yubing

• 2026
• Theater
• Indonesia to Malaysia

To research the evolution of Chinese puppetry over time and across various cities in Indonesia and in Penang, Malaysia. Over the course of her fellowship, Tan will visit key institutions, collections, and temples that offer valuable perspectives on the preservation and evolution of Chinese puppetry in Indonesia and Malaysia. Tan will explore how tradition and modernity intersect with this art form. In addition to these visits, she will meet with puppet masters, troupes, and artists collectives in the two countries. Tan hopes to understand how puppetry migrates and transforms under different cultural and political contexts and aims to find new ways to tell stories.

ZHOU Zhengnan

Country / Region:
• China

• 2026
• Architecture
• China to United States

To participate in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a semester in 2026. Zhou was selected for the Tsinghua-MIT Exchange Fellowship to attend the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) for one semester. During the fellowship, Zhou will research sustainable architecture, urbanism, and methodologies for doctoral education. As an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University, Zhou’s research focuses on green architecture and urban design.

HUANG Wanshan & LI Zhiyong

• 2026
• Visual Art
• China to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore

To continue research on “Overseas Chinese farms” that the Chinese government established in the 1950s for ethnic Chinese who were forcibly relocated from Southeast Asia to Mainland China. Huang and Li will examine the layered histories of Chinese diaspora communities in Southeast Asia, forced to relocate to farms in China between the 1950s-1970s. They will document how these specific migration patterns have shaped cultural preservation and identity formation. Their fellowship will focus on archival research at museums and Chinese clan associations, interviewing local Chinese community members, participation in events, and exchanging knowledge with Southeast Asia-based scholars and artists. Their research aims to address both the preservation and evolution of Chinese culture across global contexts.