Jia Su

Artist | PhD, University of Waikato

Jia Su is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar currently pursuing her PhD in Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research and artistic practice are grounded in Eastern philosophy and aim to respond to contemporary questions of boundary-making and ethical responsibility through visual art.

Using photography as her primary medium, she explores the entangled relationship between river imagery and the material world. Her work seeks to bring classical Chinese poetic concepts such as Yijing (意境) and Yixiang (意象) into diffractive dialogue with the notion of material agency found in new materialist thought. By employing diffractive thinking and topological generation, she constructs perceptual fields where poetic language and photographic materiality interact to generate a space of sensuous, cultural, and ecological resonance.

Her practice moves fluidly between image and language, body and landscape, poetics and technology—emphasizing the generative nature of process and relation. In doing so, she activates a philosophical mode of image-making rooted in entanglement and emergence.

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Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024
Chuang-tzu’s Dream Butterfly: Photography and Reimagining the World under the Structure of Presence
The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato, New Zealand

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Curated and Collaborative Exhibitions

2025
Ngā Ara Auaha 2025 – Creative Practice Student Showcase
The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato, New Zealand

2024
Ngā Ara Auaha 2024 – Creative Practice Student Showcase
The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato, New Zealand

2023
Ngā Ara Auaha 2023 – Creative Practice Student Showcase
The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato, New Zealand

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Education

University of Waikato
PhD in Screen and Media Studies (in progress)

University of Waikato
Master of Arts in Screen and Media Studies | 2024

Zhongyuan University of Technology
Bachelor of Arts in Photography | 2011