徐冠宇 Guanyu Xu (b.1993 Beijing) is an artist currently based in Chicago and Beijing. He is the recipient of the Chicago DCASE Artist Grant, CENTER Development Grant, Hyéres International Festival Prize, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Annual Competition, and Kodak Film Photo Award. His works have been exhibited and screened internationally including the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; International Center of Photography, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Orlean Museum of Art, New Orleans; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Wesleyan University, Middletown; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; 36th Kasseler Dokfest, Germany, and others. His work can be found in public collections including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, New Orleans Museum of Art, among others. His works have been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, ArtAsiaPacific, The New Yorker, W Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Dazed, and China Photographic Publishing House.
Guanyu Xu’s “Resident Aliens” presents physical photographic installations of immigrants' interior spaces in layered images—including their belongings, personal photo archives, and pictures of places they captured in this world—to examine their personal histories and complex experiences. In this manner, the project blurs the boundaries between the familiar and foreignness, private and public, belonging and alienation. Resident Aliens is particularly meaningful when considered with his status as a Chinese gay man and the rise of neo-nationalism and xenophobia across the globe.