Often taking video as a point of departure, and produced using a distinct technique that combines sound, image and text from different sources, Jiajia Zhang’s work is concerned with the ways in which people make sense of the world today, in the age of social media. Alongside footage she has shot herself or which has been taken from her private archive, Zhang’s films incorporate content found online: audio fragments, essays and texts, videos and images from TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. The artist is interested in what happens between those who create and those who receive – which is to say, between the performer/influencer/artist and their audience. She is interested in that which holds our attention and creates affect. She is interested in what happens when content capturing something private, delicate and personal is shared online to an audience of many and in how this shifts our notions of shared public space and of that which we deem private.

Published alongside the exhibition You Left Something Behind at Kunstmuseum St.Gallen (April 22 – October 1, 2023), the publication serves as an extended exhibition guide. Curator Melanie Bühler’s text introduces Jiajia Zhang’s practice and guides us through the works on display, followed by photographs taken by Jiajia Zhang during her residency in Milano between November 2022 and March 2023, while she was preparing the installation at Kunstmuseum. In this way, the book connects moments before, during and after the exhibition.

Published with the kind support of Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer, Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung and Landis & Gyr Stiftung.