Shu Lin (b. 2002) is a multidisciplinary artist from China, currently based in London. Working across installation, sound, image, video, and text, their practice investigates the entangled relationships between power, discipline, history, and memory, with particular attention to how political and ecological narratives shape everyday life and subjectivity.
Shu Lin (b. 2002) is a multidisciplinary artist from China, currently based in London. Working across installation, sound, image, video, and text, their practice investigates the entangled relationships between power, discipline, history, and memory, with particular attention to how political and ecological narratives shape everyday life and subjectivity.
Drawing on archival research, oral history, and material remnants, Shu Lin often examines moments where narratives of progress—such as modernisation, industrialisation, and energy transition—produce new forms of structural violence and erasure. Their work foregrounds marginalised voices and overlooked experiences, revealing the contradictions between official discourse and lived reality.
Shu Lin holds a BFA in Digital Media Arts from the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication and is currently pursuing an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Their recent exhibition Fables was held at Mall Galleries, London (2025). Their work has been exhibited in London, Beijing, and Qingdao.
Goldsmiths, University of London, London
2024 - 2026
Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, Beijing
2020 - 2024
This project focuses on the poor images produced by the official propaganda of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s political slogan on environmental policy “clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as gold and silver mountains” policy. It aims to reflect on the blatant manipulation behind the power operation by imitating and exaggerating the poor production methods of its images.
This project focuses on the "Coal-to-Gas Poverty Alleviation Project" that has been forcibly implemented in rural Hebei, China, in recent years. It aims to further reveal the intense and deeply rooted contradictions between urban and rural areas, officials and the public, and industries in the context of China's new energy transition, through the presentation of oral history and sound installation.
This project is sourced from the historical archives of Tsingtao Beer in China. It aims to explore the process of constructing modern Chinese nationalism by retracing the localisation process of beer, a foreign product.
2025
AMP Gallery, London
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