Ma Qiusha, born in 1982, graduated from the Digital Media studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2005. She obtained an MFA in Electronic Integrated Art at Alfred University in New York in 2008. She currently lives and work in Beijing. She was nominated for the Pierre Huber Prize in 2014, and for the AAC ‘Young Artist of the Year’ in 2013.
Ma Quisha’s drawing teacher was Song Dong, one of the most important Chinese contemporary artists of his generation. Her own practice is diverse: video, photography, painting, performance and installation. She has became known for her explorations of the complex relationships between people. Her videos, which are mostly autobiographical, address issues of memory, dislocation and how the post-1980s generation of artists has to come to terms with the contradictory pull of filial duties and personal freedom.
Ma Qiusha’s solo exhibitions include Ma Quisha: Tales of White Nights, which took place at the Beijing Commune, Beijing in 2019. Group exhibitions include Performing Society: The Violence of Gender, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, also in 2019. Her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums that include Tate Modern, UK; Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands; the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany; Borusan Contemporary, Turkey; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; the International Contemporary Art Foundation, Bergen, Norway; the Chinese Arts Centre, UK; the Stavanger Art Museum, Norway; the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; the National Art Museum of China; and the ‘Moscow International Biennale for Young Art’ at the Museum of Moscow.