ZHENG Bo is an ecoqueer artist of ethnic Bai heritage. Through drawing, dance and film, they cultivate kinships with plants. These relations are aesthetic, erotic, and political. For them, art does not arise from human creativity, but more-than-human vibrancy.
Zheng Bo lives in a village on the south side of Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Guided by Daoist wisdom, they grow weedy gardens, living slogans, biophilia films, and ecosocialist gatherings. These diverse projects, alive and entangled, constitute a garden where they collaborate with both human and nonhuman thinkers and activists. Their ecological art practice contributes to an emergent planetary indigeneity.
In 2023 Zheng Bo is working on the Artist’s Garden commission at Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai and three botanical public works outside Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai. In 2022 they presented a forest dance film titled Le Sacre du printemps at the 59th Venice Biennale. In 2021 they staged Wanwu Council at the Gropius Bau in Berlin and Life is hard. Why do we make it so easy? at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in Hong Kong. They participated in Sydney Biennale (2022), Liverpool Biennial (2021), Yokohama Triennale (2020), Manifesta (2018), Taipei Biennial (2018), and Shanghai Biennial (2016). Their works are in the collections of Power Station of Art in Shanghai, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Singapore Art Museum, Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, among others.
Zheng Bo studied with Douglas Crimp and received their PhD from the Graduate Program in Visual & Cultural Studies, University of Rochester. They taught at China Academy of Art from 2010 to 2013, and currently teaches at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, where they lead the Wanwu Practice Group.
Zheng Bo Hong Kong, B. Beijing, China, 1974

“Zheng Bo: Beech, Pine, Fern, Acacia”, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong, 2023.

“Zheng Bo: Beech, Pine, Fern, Acacia”, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong, 2023.

“Zheng Bo: Beech, Pine, Fern, Acacia”, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong, 2023.

“Zheng Bo: Beech, Pine, Fern, Acacia”, Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong, 2023.

4K video, color, sound
21 min

4K video, color, sound
21 min

4K video, color, sound
21 min

4K video, color, sound
16 min

4K video, color, sound
16 min

4K, color, black and white, 2 channel sound
31 min

4K, color, black and white, 2 channel sound
31 min

4K, color, black and white, 2 channel sound
31 min

“Zheng Bo: Wanwu Council 萬物社”, 2021, Gropius Bau
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst

“Zheng Bo: Wanwu Council 萬物社”, 2021, Gropius Bau
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst

“Zheng Bo: Wanwu Council 萬物社”, 2021, Gropius Bau
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst

“Zheng Bo: Wanwu Council 萬物社”, 2021, Gropius Bau
Photo: Eike Walkenhorst

Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, 2021
Courtesy of JCNAP. Supported by JCNAP

Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, 2021
Courtesy of JCNAP. Supported by JCNAP

Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, 2021
Courtesy of JCNAP. Supported by JCNAP

Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, 2021
Courtesy of JCNAP. Supported by JCNAP

Edouard Malingue Gallery, Art Basel Miami Beach 2019
Image courtesy of Edouard Malingue Gallery
Photo by Sebastiano Pellion

Edouard Malingue Gallery, Art Basel Miami Beach 2019
Image courtesy of Edouard Malingue Gallery
Photo by Sebastiano Pellion

Edouard Malingue Gallery, Art Basel Miami Beach 2019
Image courtesy of Edouard Malingue Gallery
Photo by Sebastiano Pellion

4K video, color, sound, 16 min

Ink on paper, 110 sheets
18.4 x 13 cm each

Ink on paper, 110 sheets
18.4 x 13 cm each

4K video, color, sound, 15 min

4K video, color, sound, 20 min

4K video, color, sound, 20 min

Bamboo, paper, pencils, humans, and compost
Photo by Erhan


Residency at Asia Art Archive
September 2018 – March 2019


4K video, color, sound, 17 min

4K video, color, sound, 17 min

Ink on paper, 105 sheets
18.4 x 13 cm each

Ink on paper, 105 sheets
18.4 x 13 cm each

Ink on paper, 72 sheets
13 x 18.4 x 1.7 cm

Ink on paper, 72 sheets
13 x 18.4 x 1.7 cm