Yue Hua, LightGrid, 2024, 10 ft x 10 ft Overhead projection Medium: Overhead projector, dry flower, glass, color filter, prism, soil, water, ink

Yue Hua

ACTivate Resident 2026

Yue Hua/华越 (she/her) is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist who uses analog film, expanded cinema, and digital media to explore cross-cultural identity(Chinese-American), language, and female experience from a personal lens. Her work, often incorporating personal narratives, cultural background, dismantles traditional roles and empowers women through visual storytelling.

Her films and performances have been featured internationally at film festivals and galleries, including Revolution Per Minute Film Festivals, Mono No Aware Film Festival, Millennium Film Workshop Channel, Fisura International Festival of Experimental Film & Video, Brooklyn Film Festival, and AVIFF le festival du film d’artiste.

Yue holds a BFA from the China Academy of Art, majoring in film and television production, and an MFA in Film and Media Arts at Emerson College. Yue is a recipient of the UFVA Carole Fielding Grant, Emerging Artist Award from RPM Festival, New England Local Filmmaker Award, Emerson Enhancement Fund, and I-Park Residency, and has served as a teaching fellow at Emerson College and RISD.

2026

ACTivate Residency

Project Statement

I propose a multichannel 16mm film installation and live performance exploring layered meanings of “home” from both personal and Boston community perspectives. As a Chinese artist who arrived in the U.S. with two suitcases, I reflect on home as memory, flavor, and the connections I’ve built in new places. Using hand-made, found, and live-recorded film, I will create a sensory portrait inspired by haiku and visual poetry.

Personal objects will be arranged on the floor to trace a transition—from travel essentials to the familiar furniture and belongings that define a sense of home. Film strips will hang across the Cyclorama’s circular space, transforming it into a living cinematic reflection on home, life, and belonging. There will be a final showcase that collaborates with musicians on a live score, and invites local participants to draw or write on clear 16mm film, integrating their reflections into the final performance. Inspired by Stan VanDerBeek’s Movie-Drome, this participatory work reimagines cinema as a collective space for memory, identity, and shared experience.