Artist Biography:

Dan Zhang works across installation, painting, and video. Her practice focuses on the labour conditions and survival environments of East Asian women within systems of culture, healthcare, law, and power politics. She is interested in discovering the similarities between everyday objects and specialized tools, using them as entry points to explore the movement of the female body and the dynamics of power across private and public domains. By blurring the boundaries of these spaces, she aims to deconstruct and reveal the violence hidden beneath the calm surface of our daily lives.

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Description:

Thinprep Cytologic Test (2025) is an installation whose title references the ThinPrep liquid-based cytology method commonly used in cervical screening. Organised around a toilet as its central structure, the work combines soap, resin, acrylic, metal, medical examination gloves, and a rotating motor to construct an apparatus that adopts the visual logic of clinical environments.

The artist's repeated experiences inform the work of gynaecological examinations and the emotional distance embedded within medical routines. By bringing domestic cleaning practices into dialogue with gynaecological procedures, the installation draws attention to how female bodies are continually regulated, sanitised, and subjected to intrusion across both healthcare systems and everyday life. Within this framework, care operates alongside mechanisms of control, while pain, vulnerability, and bodily labour are rendered procedural, normalised, and increasingly difficult to perceive within institutional contexts.