Next week, Chinese-born artist, writer and filmmaker Connie Zheng will begin her residency for the Dickinson Visual Arts Endowment. Now based in the East Bay, Zheng explores the relationships between people and their worlds, integrating resources such as maps of toxic areas to communicate the importance of environmental justice and coordinating ongoing participatory projects such as “Seed Almanac,” in which participants create clay seeds representing things they wish to become reality. Her many-faceted projects have also included food, speculative fiction and hand-drawn animation.

Zheng’s work has appeared in museums across the country, including the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. Internationally, she has been featured at Sa Sa Art Projects in Phnom Penh, Framer Framed in Amsterdam and Salt Beyoğlu in Istanbul. She has earned recognition in the form of fellowships and awards from Headlands Center for the Arts, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, the Puffin Foundation and more. She was also named a 2023 YBCA 100 honoree by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Throughout her residency, Zheng’s works will be showcased in the gallery at the Rothschild Performing Arts Center. She will also conduct workshops with Harker lower, middle and upper school students as well as create collaborative projects that will be exhibited at each campus. On Dec. 4, Zheng will participate in a discussion with Nidhi Gandhi ’11, curatorial and programs associate at the San Jose Museum of Art, as part of the Harker Speaker Series.