Second World War Galleries

RUYUN XIAO

Ruyun Xiao is an artist, writer, researcher, exhibition designer, and illustrator from China. She explores the concept of bodily knowledge through performative form. Her imaginative process embodies herself in first-person memories, stories, and myths. She produces frameworks, and instruments to choreograph experiences of the unknown. Using writing as the foundation, she engages with performance, design, publication, and sound to communicate sensorium ways of knowing and unknowing.

Xiao is currently based in London, United Kingdom. She recently graduated from the Critical Curatorial Cybernetics research master program at Haute école d’art et de design(HEAD), Geneva, Switzerland. She worked as a 2D designer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates in New York City for six years. She received an MFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in 2018, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the Maryland Institute College of Arts in 2016, and a BA in Advertising from the Beijing University of Technology in 2015.

performances, exhibitions

Design

Writing, Publishing

Second World War Galleries, Imperial War Museum

2020
Exhibition Design, Illustrations
Client: Imperial War Museum
Art director: Matt Mason

Xiao designed and illustrated the wallpapers for this exhibition. She researched home decor and color in 1940s London to fully incorporate the wallpapers as part of the experience. Working with the exhibition contents, she illustrated the historical images of people’s life during the war.