Yuge Zhou, video and installation artist from China, based in Chicago. Photography © Y. Zhou
1.In your opinion what is the role of a museum?
Museums, of course, are windows into history and past cultures or, at the very least, a site of beauty that provides people with mental escape. But more importantly, museums have the power and obligation to challenge us to reexamine our thoughts and ideas about socially engaged issues and how we are to live.
It is an important force to push society and political leaders, as well as economic engines and culture forward and interrogate their direction.
2.What are your favorite museums in the world? Why?
The Art Institute of Chicago is like my backyard, having studied at the School of the Art Institute. I frequented the galleries, sometimes just to seek a moment of escape by transporting myself into the world of atmospheric masterpieces of French impressionists or many other European and American painters.
