Artist in Residence
spring 2026
Quan Zhou
In residence Spring Quarter 2026 (April - June 2026)
Quan Zhou's residency is co-presented by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Kaplan Humanities Institute.
During Spring 2026, Quan Zhou will teach an undergraduate course, present a podcasting workshop, and develop a transmedia installation of her latest artwork, LINAJE, which reconstructs the artist’s lost ancestry through AI-generated histories and artifacts—photographs, documents, drawings, and heirloom objects.
Residency events
Meet the Artist Reception
April 10, 2026
3:00 - 5:00 pm
Artist's Studio - Kresge #2315
Join us for a casual open house reception to meet Quan Zhou and see the kinds of work she'll be developing during her residency. Refreshments will be served.
Podcasting Workshop
April 28-29, 2026
5:00 to 7:00pm, both days
Kresge #2350 - Kaplan Humanities Institute
Please register at:
Narrating Memory: Podcasting Oral History - Workshop with Quan Zhou – Fill out form
Narrating Memory: Podcasting Oral History, will be a two-day experience where participants will explore oral history as a tool for recovering, preserving, and reclaiming memory. Workshop participants will gain practical skills in audio recording, interview techniques, and digital editing, culminating in the production of short podcast pieces centered on family or community stories.
Linaje (Lineage) Installation
Kaplan Artist Studio - Kresge #2315
Dates to be announced
Linaje is a transmedia installation that reconstructs the artist’s lost ancestry through AI-generated histories and artifacts—photographs, documents, drawings, and heirloom objects—and invites reflection on migration, coloniality, memory, ancestry, and AI’s reparative potential. Click here for Quan Zhou's Artist Statement about Linaje.
Artist Talk
May 19, 2026
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Kresge #2350 - Kaplan Humanities Institute
Zhou will host a public lecture as an interdisciplinary encounter that explores how emerging digital tools shape contemporary storytelling and historical reconstruction. Building on engagement through Linaje, Zhou will invite the community into a dialogue at the intersection of memory, migration, and digital speculation, expanding the possibilities of what it means to reclaim and reimagine ancestry in the AI age.
Spring Course
Reclaiming Lost Ancestries in the Digital Age
This seminar examines migration and cultural memory across transatlantic and transpacific networks, situating contemporary Spanish cultural production within broader global circuits of movement, diaspora, and archival occlusions. Taught in Spanish, the course foregrounds critical fabulation as a method for addressing archival gaps, interrogating official histories, and reimagining ancestry beyond documentary evidence. Students will examine the ethical implications of AI in shaping historical and genealogical narratives, from archival access and preservation decisions to digital reconstruction. Class sessions will include visits to local community archives such as the Shorefront Legacy Center and Evanston ASPA. By experimenting with digital tools and interrogating the limits of historical knowledge, students will create a final digital family history project.
About Quan Zhou
Quan Zhou (Algeciras, 1989) is a multifaceted self-taught artist, speaker, podcaster, and graphic novelist. She held the 2024 Honorary Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at New York University and was a top five finalist for the 2025 Princess of Girona Awards in the Arts category. Zhou’s work explores the intersections of identity, migration, and cultural hybridity. Born and raised in southern Spain to Chinese parents, she brings a unique transnational perspective to her storytelling and social commentary. After completing her studies in Madrid and graduating in Graphic Communication from the U.K., she began publishing graphic narratives that have since marked a turning point in the representation of immigrant experiences in Spanish popular culture.
Her debut, Gazpacho Agridulce: Una autobiografía chino-andaluza (Astiberri, 2015), was groundbreaking for its candid depiction of growing up as a daughter of immigrants in Spain. It was followed by Andaluchinas por el mundo (2017) and Gente de aquí, Gente de allí (2020), a graphic essay on migration, privilege, and the politics of belonging. Her most recent graphic novel, La Agridolce Vita (2023), continues to blend humor, memory, and political reflection. Beyond graphic literature, her podcast Movidas Varias, produced by Plan H Media and distributed by Eldiario.es, offers a powerful platform for minoritized voices across Spain and Latin America.
As an artist and speaker, she has been invited to collaborate with many prestigious institutions in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Zhou has lectured on race, identity, and diasporic narratives in Spain, the U.S., the U.K., China, Taiwan, and Colombia. Her work has also been featured in media outlets including Vogue, Píkara Magazine, El País, and Eldiario.es.
Scholarly discussions of her work have appeared in The Hispanic Journal, Spanish Graphic Narratives: Recent Developments in Sequential Art (Palgrave, 2020), and The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies (Routledge, 2020).
The Kaplan Institute Artist in Residence Program
The Kaplan Humanities Institute is proud to recognize and financially support working artists across the visual, performing, and literary arts.
Since 2008, Kaplan has co-hosted innovative and award-winning artists working in diverse media, facilitating opportunities to share insight into the conceptualization, process, and production of new work. We have partnered with Northwestern departments and programs to situate artists within a scholarly interdisciplinary community where they share their practice through classes, open studios, screenings, exhibitions, lectures, concerts, readings, and performances.
Building on this longstanding support of arts programming at Northwestern, Kaplan launched a new Artist Engagement Initiative in Spring 2023 with a revamped artist residency program and co-curricular grants.
Questions?
Please contact Jill Mannor at jill.mannor@northwestern.edu.
