JENNIFER  BOYUAN  HAN​

Artist Statement

 

Han’s artistic practice explores the dual nature of technology, particularly the impact of “tech addiction” on human cognition and social relationships. Her series Humanbot reflects the merging of humans and machines in the AI era, drawing on nostalgic Chinese family photographs to highlight how cultural rituals are becoming mechanical. Inspired by a childhood belief that she was like a robot—her thoughts and decisions seemingly governed by programmed neural algorithms—she uses the series as a satire on the erosion of emotional authenticity in digital life.

 

In recent years, her work has further examined how traditional Chinese culture is being eroded by technological developments such as social media and artificial intelligence. Using blue-and-white porcelain as a metaphor, she addresses issues of cultural loss and erasure. Once revered, these artifacts, now displaced, kitschified, and renamed (like the “David Vases”), mirror her immigrant experience and raise questions about identity, authorship, and the commodification of heritage in a technology-driven society.

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In her most recent works, Han expands her inquiry into memory and identity through the fragile material of colored sand. By tearing and reassembling photographic fragments into layered sand surfaces, she connects back to her Humanbot series, where childhood photographs were pixelated to question emotional authenticity. Here, sand itself functions like pixels, fragile and unstable, reflecting how memory and cultural identity are constantly being re-coded and eroded.

 

Key words: technology, identity, and cultural memory.​​