AKI LEE 

Aki Lee is active as artist and socio-cultural practitioner in urban public spaces dealing with topics of urban regeneration and social engagement. With over ten years of experiences in Eurasia contexts, Lee works within the existing architectural framework and often challenge and reshape the power dynamics through creative project managing and tactics in communication.

Lee’s artistic and social practices delve into issues of urban regeneration, displacement and relocation of diaspora and immigrants, and the nuanced realm of community building and collaboration. Grounded in rigorous field research and theoretical study, Lee employs a blend of serious playfulness and analogue gaming as primary methodologies for her socially engaged art. In both the process of social participation and post-participatory production, interactive workshops and collective game design serve as means for bringing together community members or audiences and fostering mutual connections among them. Her focus also extends to the significance of plants and edibles in the daily life of urban residents, as she researches, communicates and reimagines their historical, cultural and political context cross-culturally. Through collaboration with members in specific communities, first-person experiences and sensations are widely collected, collectively edited and translated into printing materials or embodied workshops across different times and locations. These efforts are imbued with educational aims to foster understanding and empathy among people from diverse backgrounds.

Currently based in Vienna pursuing her doctoral research, Lee continues to work on projects that explores land, cultivation, food and identities, displacement and relocation of diaspora and immigrants, and the nuanced realm of community building and engagement. 

[Projects, Researches, Residency]

• 2023 'Navigating the Water' Immersive GameTheater, on going 
• 2023 'Lianjiang Herbalist',on going
• 2023 'Sauerknautsch, Speise des Wasserwegs',CN+AT
• 2022 'Kleines Glückdas Brettspiel Haus',Commissioned work by YAV,CN
  
• 2021-2022 'City/Village – Longgang Six Villages Practice', initiated by District City Administration and Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau of Shenzhen, CN
• 2020 'Game of Collective Suffering', Commissioned by Times Museum, CN
  
• 2020 'Radical Transparency'-Art Residency in JALAN BESAR SALON, SG
• 2019 'Nanshan Art and Design Week at Value Factory' Shenzhen, CN
  
• 2019 'Jiezhuan Lane Lab', Guangzhou, CN
• 2018 ‘Unlayering Centers -Platz für Originale’ Floridsdorf Vienna, AT
  
• 2017 ‘You Xin - Secondhand Book Storm’, Shenzhen, CN
• 2017 ‘Meine Favoriten, Deine Favoriten’ Favoriten Vienna, AT
  
• 2016 ‘Toilet Paper: Let’s break the ice’, Vienna, AT 

[Workshops & Activities]

• 2023 'Mai Ling Soup Bath', WIEN WOCHE Closing Performance at Brunnenpassage, AT
  
• 2023 'Shui-Lu Cai, Gemeinsam zu Tisch', Atelierhaus Salzamt Linz, AT
• 2020 'Salon, Public Sphere and Rococo', Meissen Salon Talks (Shenzhen), CN
  
• 2019 ‘Being a Cementer’-Banyan Commune, Times Museum Guangzhou, CN
  
• 2019  'Collective Suffering and the Rolling Octopus', alumni talk, Social Design 
• 2018  ‘Stadt-Praxis Knotenpunkt Nachbarschaft’ Ur(9)anize Festival, AT
  
• 2018  ‘Unlayering Centers -Platz für Originale’, DRG  21er Wien, AT
  
• 2017 ‘You Xin - Secondhand Book Storm workshop’, Shenzhen MinDe High school
  
• 2017 ‘Open Your Space - Siping Festival’, Yangpu High school and Tongji University
  
• 2017 ‘China A1-B2’, workshop series Social Design Dept. Wien, AT
  
• 2017 ‘Lost and Fond - Nordbahnhof Freimitte’, Social Design Dept., AT
  
• 2017  ‘Meine Favoriten, Deine Favoriten - neighbourhood brunch’, Brot Fabrik Wien
• 2014  ‘Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanism for Expanding Megacities’, MAK Wien, AT
  
• 2013  ‘UABB 2013-2014’, Value Factory Academy workshop series, Shenzhen, CN
  

[Publications, Academics]

• 2023 Guest Lecturer, MA social practice, Baptist University HK CN
  
• 2023 Guest Critic for Master presentation, Social Design
• 2020 'Critical Spatial Practice in China' co-curated conference, Social Design Dpt., University of Applied Arts Vienna, AT
  
• 2018 Published Article: Socially-engaged Public Art in Urban Redevelopments, PublicArt Magazine issue 54, CN
• 2017 ‘International Public Art Study Workshop – Dashilar’, launched by Public ArtCooperation Centre (PACC) of Shanghai University Academy of Fine Arts and Public ArtMagazine. Beijing and Shanghai, CN 
• 2014 ‘Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanism for Expanding Megacities’ MoMA PS1, USA 

[Solo Exhibition] 

•  ‘Apps- AKI LEE Solo Exhibition'; S.I.T  Shenzhen 2014, Guangzhou 2013, CN
  

[Selected Group Exhibition]

• 2023 'Not Your Ornament' with all Mai Lings, Secession, AT
  
• 2023 'What is essential is invisible to the eye', Alte Schieberkammer, AT
• 2020 'Study of Things', Game of Collective Suffering, Times Museum, CN
• 2015 ‘Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanism for Expanding Megacities’, NY MoMA PS1