Elena Yu
Image by Sarah Lyon
Artist Exchange, Artist Fellow
Elena Yu is an interdisciplinary artist and arts organizer from Los Angeles, CA. Her practice weaves together many mediums and intentions including textiles, performance, drawing, sculpture, archival research and community practice. In both her artist and organizing practices, Elena’s emphasis is on developing public programs and exhibitions that consider and care for all aspects of a community ecosystem, bringing together local residents, artists, partnering organizations and sites around contemporary art and issues.
Elena has exhibited, performed, facilitated workshops and attended artist residences throughout the United States. She has worked in arts programming at Arts Connection the Arts Council of San Bernardino (2022-2023), High Desert Test Sites (2016-2022), Headlands Center for the Arts, and the MAK Center. In 2022, she co-founded The Firehouse (@thefirehousejt) and Sun Spot (@sun___spot), two artist-run spaces in Joshua Tree, CA.
Elena is currently an Arts Equity Commons Campus Artist-in-Residence at University of California Santa Barbara, an Incubator Artist at McGuffey Art Center, studio member at Visible Records, and the Ruffin Gallery and Visiting Artist Coordinator at UVA’s Department of Art.
Instagram: @elenadaojingyu, @dao_bao_yu
For her 2024 New City Arts Fellowship, Elena will engage with the University Ethnic Studies Library as a fallow place, continuing her ongoing Dust Jackets project. She will respond with sculpture to the archives, material objects, and institutional culture of a historically significant Ethnic Studies library collection at University of California, Santa Barbara.
