Alien Archive
Artist： Una Qingwen Zhang
I am a New York–based Chinese artist, designer, and researcher working at the intersection of
food, perception, history, and cultural construction. Through experiential design, creative
technology, and material experimentation, I create participatory installations that use taste,
smell, and storytelling to examine how collective memory is constructed—psychologically,
culturally, and generationally. My work invites collective meaning-making and opens space for
reflection and connection.
My practice is research-driven. I have spent years conducting historical and ethnographic
research on how recipes and food traditions traveled and adapted between East and Central
Asia from the 7th to 13th century CE. I trace how migration reshapes what we consider
“authentic.” This inquiry continues to shape my artistic approach. Whether through dumplings,
cookies, or speculative archives, my art explores how individual and collective lives are
intrinsically varied yet deeply interconnected across space and time.
My projects have appeared at the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD), the Whitney Museum
of American Art, Maker Faire, NYC Media Lab, Jersey Public Library, and The Others Art Fair in
Turin, Italy. I have received media coverage from The New York Post, Artdaily, Artribune, and
101 ART BOOK.
About Alien Archive
Alien Archive is a research-based sculptural project that examines how cultural identity is
constructed and preserved through food. The project began with the discovery that “dumpling”
originally referred to simple boiled doughs in early English cookbooks and only later expanded
to include meat-filled forms like wontons and jiaozi as Asian migration reshaped both cuisine
and language, embedding the term within debates about belonging and difference.
The dumpling becomes a lens for examining what is labeled “alien”—whether an introduced
ingredient, a migrating community, or a dish reframed as national heritage. Drawing from
archival cookbooks and ethnographic records, these recreated dumplings are encased in resin
as sculptural relics. What is ordinarily ephemeral—made to be eaten and forgotten—is
preserved as artifact. By reversing digestion and interrupting consumption, the project freezes
adaptation into material form.