New Voices: Artist Visits at initial research

In New York, time and space are often closely tied to currency and productivity. This performance program, organized by initial research 2026/2027 fellow Amiko Li,  in collaboration with Tianran Qian, brings together three artists whose practices challenge conventional forms of artmaking through subtitles and translation, wearable poetry, and performative investigation.

Moving beyond the production of material objects, their works consider bodies, language, and lived experiences as sites of exploration, imagining new ways of thinking about time, labor, and value.

During the evening, Amiko will also introduce the new initiative, Artist Visits.

Artist Visits brings patrons, emerging collectors, and curious art viewers into artists’ studios and independent art spaces. Founded by artists, we look beyond the institutional filter and art market noise to foster direct connections between patrons and artists. We believe the most meaningful art encounters often happen not in traditional exhibition settings, but in the unexpected, unfinished moments of a studio visit.

Artist Bios:

Jiaoyang Li

Jiaoyang Li is a poet and interdisciplinary artist based in New York. Working across text, performance, moving image and site-specific research. Her projects have taken place in galleries and art spaces, as well as theme park, sauna, construction sites, subway stations, and other places that ghosts have touched. She has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, PEN America, and the British Council. Her interdisciplinary work has been presented at New York Live Arts, HERE Arts Center, Chashama, the Immigrant Artist Biennial, and Performa, among others. She is also a co-founder of Accent Accent, a New York–based independent publishing and cultural organization working across literature, art, and diasporic cultural production.

Sixing Xu

Sixing Xu (b. 1996, Beijing) is an artist, translator, and writer based in Brooklyn. She uses installation, sculpture, writing, printmaking, and collaborative projects to mine peripheral meanings and storylines across linguistic borders. Past exhibitions include tbc projects, Beijing; Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens; Accent Sisters, New York; 601Artspace, New York; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Current Plans, Hong Kong; Shanghai Himalayas Museum; Chengdu Times Art Museum; among others. Her writings and projects have appeared in print and on the digital platforms of Spike Art Magazine, The Art Newspaper China, Sine Theta Magazine, Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, and MACA Art Center. In 2025, Xu was awarded an Archives Research Residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York. She is also a co-founder of Pararailing, a loosely-defined artist collective based between New York and Shanghai and holds a BA from Vassar College.

Rujuta Rao

Rujuta Rao (b. Goa, India) works across book art, beverage, text, installation, and social practice, and makes conceptual and functional garments through her gender-expansive clothing line, RUGA. Research-driven and personal, her work uses material investigation to explore migration, place, family history, and hospitality. Rao is curious about how artworks can transform into spaces for gathering, creating conditions for connection and dialogue between the artist and audience. In 2026, Rao is a member at NEW INC, the New Museum's cultural incubator, a dual resident at Dieu Donné and Artists Alliance Inc. and a fellow at Initial Research in New York. Rao lives and works in the New York metropolitan area.

Amiko Li

Amiko Li is an artist, educator, and cultural organizer working between Shanghai and New York. His artistic practice and professional experience are deeply rooted in care and attention to the art ecology and system, spanning artistic production, teaching and workshops, institutional engagement, and community collaboration. His work has been exhibited and performed internationally at UCCA Beijing, Power Station of Art Shanghai, Center for Arts, Research, and Alliances in New York, and Haus der Elektronischen Künste in Switzerland. He has collaborated directly with foundations and non-profit organizations including Asymmetry Foundation, Asia Art Archive in America, and Goethe Institut. He has been an artist-in-residence at Delfina Foundation, Künstler*innenhaus Dortmund, and Triangle Arts, and has taught at UC San Diego, Smith College, University of Georgia, and Rutgers University. His writings have appeared on LEAP and Qilu criticism. As Founder and Director of Artist Visits, Li brings an artist-led perspective to building encounters between artists, patrons, independent spaces, and institutions across China and the United States.

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Image: Xiaofu Wang in her studio. Amiko Li for Artist Visits, 2026.