Sophia Wan Zhiyan ’26 didn't always see herself as an artist. But four years of Interactive Media Arts (IMA) classes have convinced her she is one.
Sophia chose NYU Shanghai for its flexibility: she wanted space to explore.
In her first year, she enrolled in the introductory course Communications Lab, drawn by an urge that she had something to express. “I realized how much room there was for creation,” she recalls. “It was exciting in a way that gave me a deep sense of fulfillment.”
Yet what kept her in IMA was not only the act of making, but the supportive community that helped her define herself more clearly. The IMA community, as she describes it, functioned less like an enclosed group and more like an expanding network—“like ripples spreading outward.”
In that environment, something subtle began to shift inside her. At first when professors introduced students as “IMA artists,” the description felt distant, almost aspirational. But over time, it became something she could tentatively claim.
“I started to think—maybe I am an artist too,” she said.
Her artistic instincts began to sharpen, as she explored her own lived experiences.
During her sophomore year, Sophia and her IMA classmate Maggie Wang Shiyu ’26 worked on a project funded by the Deans’ Undergraduate Research Fund centered on the 2008 Sichuan earthquake—the memory of which has haunted people in Sichuan, where she grew up. In the stories of teachers and those around her, the disaster remained vivid: moments of loss, of survival, of lingering fear.
As she gathered accounts through interviews and archival research, she found herself drawn less to the scale of the event than to the intimacy of individual memories. Each voice, fragmented yet vivid, carried a weight that no overarching narrative could fully contain.
It was then that she began to understand where her work was heading: toward the intersection of collective memory and personal experience.
During her study away semester in Florence, she began to assert her identity and style as an artist.
At first, it was the pace of life that struck her. Having studied in fast-moving Shanghai, she became obsessed with the texture of slowness and real-ness in Florence.
In the evenings, she would stand by the Ponte Vecchio with her friend Maggie, eating gelato and watching the sky dissolve into shades of pink and violet.
It was also the period when she took the most photographs—but in a way she had never tried before. “I only pressed the shutter when I truly appreciated the moment,” she recalls. “It became more intentional.”
Through a photojournalism course, she began to think more critically about what it meant to observe the world—not just aesthetically, but ethically.
Her professor led the class to Scampia, a neighborhood in Naples once known for its mafia ties. There, as part of a field study, she encountered a different kind of narrative: children of the mafia growing up in the shadow of inherited stigma, yet imagining futures beyond it.
“In grand historical narratives, they’re always labeled as ‘descendants of the mafia,’” she says. “But as individuals, they deserve the right to define their own futures.”
In a local community art space, she saw an art piece that stayed with her: small boxes filled with the children’s personal objects—pencils, books, handwritten notes of hope.
The experience reframed her understanding of art, and inspired her mid-term project: a photographic essay film about Scampia’s past and future. It was no longer just about expression, but about engagement—about entering into relationships with people in broader society and making space for their stories.
Back in Shanghai, Sophia approached her work with renewed clarity. Her work, rooted in individual experience—began reaching outward, toward others and broader social issues.
One of her most defining projects was inspired by a scar: a long mark across her waist from a childhood accident. For years, it carried not just memory, but meaning shaped by others—especially her mother, who once lamented that the scar made her body “imperfect.”
Sophia saw it differently. To her, scars were not flaws, but records—fragments of lived experience inscribed onto her body.
She began collecting “scar stories,” first from people around her, and then from strangers on social media. Some had been mocked for visible differences; others had survived accidents that reshaped their lives. She gathered these intimate narratives and transformed them into a project titled Wounds X Possibilities, presented as a diary, accompanied by a live coding performance.
The project became a turning point for Sophia’s practice. By reaching beyond her immediate circle, she built connections with people whose experiences differed profoundly from her own.
She gained access to a broader community—individuals involved in social initiatives, advocacy, and creative practice. These relationships gradually formed what she describes as a “social network” for her as an artist and her projects began to expand.
She co-created an installation addressing menstrual stigma and period poverty, inviting public interaction through a “sanitary pad message wall.” In another project, she collaborated with Nelly, a woman working in autism inclusion who also participated in her Wounds X Possibilities project, to exhibit artworks by autistic children.
These works were no longer confined to the classroom. They existed in dialogue with real communities, real concerns.
“It made me question,” she says, “whether something I thought was meaningful was actually just self-contained. Could it resonate beyond a small circle?”
The answer, increasingly, came from the people she met outside campus. As her artistic direction became clearer, so did her sense of conviction.
Earlier in college, she admits, she often felt anxious—measuring herself against peers, uncertain about the future. But exposure to alternative paths changed her perspective. Many of the people she met were not bound to a single job or trajectory; they navigated multiple roles, combining creative work, social engagement, and entrepreneurship.
“It made me realize my path could be much broader than I thought,” she says.
This realization also shaped her relationship with her family. Early on in her college career, her mother had hoped she would pursue a more conventional route—choose a practical major, find a stable job. Their disagreements were frequent, and Sophia often felt she lacked the confidence to fully defend her choices.
“That was because I hadn’t convinced myself yet,” she reflects.
Now, she speaks with a different tone.
“I know I can be an artist. I know I can build a life around what I want to do,” she says confidently.
Her mother, gradually, has come to understand. She listens to her introduce her projects, asks questions, attends her exhibitions. There are still concerns about her future career, but they coexist with pride in her accomplishments.
This fall semester, Sophia will pursue a master’s degree in Digital Creativity with the Erasmus Mundus scholarship, studying at three different universities in France, Portugal, and Poland. In the long term, she envisions a mobile lifestyle: traveling, artist residencies, her own designer brand.
She used to think she should find a stable job first and postpone her dreams of a nomadic artist life. That plan no longer appeals to her. “Comfort can be addictive,” she says. “If you wait, you might never leave it.”
So instead, she is already on her way.