Arete Xu is an interdisciplinary artist and storyteller. She is from Aotearoa, New Zealand and is also shaped by her years spent in Brazil and China. Her practice echoes her three homes, her three hearts.

Arete’s work draws from her personal and collective diaspora experiences across multiple ‘worlds’ and upraises them into myths. She honours these stories, but also endeavours to their uneasy contradictions. This tension is also present materially, as her practice moves between the embodied presence of customary crafts such as woodworking, carving, and lacquer to the digital alchemy of projection, performance, and fabrication. Xu’s work also reimagines origin stories of hybrid worlds where cultures slip beyond geopolitical boundaries, speculating new myths to reclaim memories and identities in the aftermath of colonisation. She hopes to build a new digital folklore, one that resonates with the elusive belonging of in-between existence, for diaspora identities have always rendered Truth into fable.

 As a forever-in-motion third-culture kid, Xu reflects on how the Asian diaspora’s relationship to culture is often mediated and interfaced exclusively through screens, a relationship marked by absence and estrangement.  Through art historical and archival research, she develops curatorial projects, public programs and educational material, primarily in museums and arts organisations. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, English, Portuguese, and continuing her learning of Te Reo Māori, Arete connects with diverse audiences through writing for publications for varying registers. She is always seeking to innovate with new storytelling forms and to question how institutions hold culture and how communities might be reconnected with their art.

Arete is pursuing a BFA in Sculpture and a concentration in Theory and History of Art and Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has recently worked with the RISD Museum, Pao Arts Centre, and the RISD Center for Arts and Language.
                                                                 

Education
Rhode Island School of Design,  BFA in Sculpture + Concentration in Theory of Art History and Design Providence, RI. 

Selected Exhibitions 
2025    Ultraviolet Catastrophe, Washington Place| Providence, RI
2025    Sensecape, Microsoft Garage |  Soho, NYC
2025   Reframing Representation, RISD Centre for Integrative Technologies | Providence, RI (curated) 
2023   Reflection and Refraction, Washington Place| Providence, RI (curated) 
2022    No Longer Transparent, RISD Museum Gelman Gallery | Providence, RI
2021   Young at Art, Youth Arts New Zealand | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand

Publications 
2025   volume. 1 Spring 2025 Edition, Circling Home: A Roundtable (essay) 
2025   RISD Museum, To the Asian Grocery Aisle! (coming soon)
2024   volume. 1 Spring 2024 Edition, Quickies and Questionings (essay) 
2024   Worlding Englishes: Living Archive (digital publication) 
2023    volume. 1 Spring 2023 Edition, Colliding Scopes (digital publication)
2023    Colliding Scopes Blog (digital publication)

Grants & Awards 
2025    Turner Fund Performative Arts Grant
2022-25   Rhode Island School of Design Honors Dean’s List 
2021    NCEA National Scholarship for Painting, Art History, English, History, and Religious Studies
2021    Contribution to Performing Arts, Rangitoto College