YUCHI MA: PANDAS ARE PANDAS at LA ARTCORE
JUNE 6 – 29, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION: JUNE 6, 2025; 6PM – 9PM / PERFORMANCE BY DAJIN YOON
Yuchi Ma, HORSEGIRL+SELFCARE, 2023
Pandas are Pandas is the first solo exhibition of filmmaker and video artist Yuchi Ma (马语迟). The artist is interested in meaning-making within intercultural experiences and believes in the manifesting potential of experimental filmmaking and video-making in resistance against the lexicon and form of commercialized language and narrative consumption. Curated by Adrianne Ramsey, the show is on view from June 6 – 29, 2025 at LA Artcore and highlights the artist’s experience as a Parachute Kid.
Pandas are Pandas will feature a selection Yuchi’s recent films, video projects, and sculptural installations, emphasizing the multidisciplinary methods the artist uses to examine and engage with the interconnected histories of family, globalism, and separation. Both RED THREADS (我很爱你)(2022) and HORSEGIRL+SELFCARE (2023) trace the language of her diasporic experience through a collage of personal and poetic live-action filmmaking with video game Machinimas and digital, internet, and pop-culture references. This exhibition will also debut Yuchi’s two latest projects, the first being PANDAS ARE PANDAS (2025). The film further explores themes of home, kinship, borders and the simulation of nostalgia, identities, and nationhood. LOOP (2025) is a slice of video materiality on reaching home, a return that is not a circle but an ever-growing loop. Who dreams of whom in these ceaseless transformations? By making videos that close the gap between herself and the world around her, the artist attempts to return home.
The opening reception will be on June 6 from 6-9 PM, and will feature a performance by Dajin Yoon, a multidisciplinary LA based artist whose practice examines the limits of language. The exhibition will also feature a limited-edition zine publication for spectators to take home that includes essays from both the artist and the curator, and a closing screening event will take place on June 28.
Yuchi Ma: Pandas are Pandas is made possible in part by the generous support of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yuchi Ma (马语迟) is an artist, filmmaker, and Parachute Kid from Beijing, China. Yuchi has screened and exhibited in various film and art spaces, including Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA), Hammer Museum, LA Artcore, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Most recently, Yuchi’s experimental film RED THREADS (2022) won the Grand Jury Prize for Experimental Shorts at the Slamdance Film Festival (2023), Best Web & New Media at the Independent Shorts Awards (2023), and Best Experimental Short at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, and Technology (2023). Yuchi earned her BFA in Film and TV Production from USC in 2019 and her MFA in Design Media Arts at UCLA in 2022.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Adrianne Ramsey is a Bay Area based independent arts curator, editor, and publisher. She has organized solo and group exhibitions, with accompanying printed catalogues and public programming, for Berkeley Art Center, Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA), Root Division, and USC Roski Galleries. From 2017-2024, she was the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of GIRLS (2017-2024), a digital magazine that featured long-form interviews with femme-identifying contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers. Her writing on contemporary art and culture has appeared in several exhibition catalogues and publications, including AWARE, Cultbytes, and November, and she has given talks at Emerging Arts Professionals (SF/Bay Area), The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and Perfect Exposure Gallery. Her recent achievements include being a 2024 FOCA Curatorial Lab Program Awardee; 2023 Alternative Exposure Grantee (GIRLS); and a 2020 YBCA 100 Honoree. She holds both a BA in Art History and MA in Curatorial Practices from USC.
ABOUT LA ARTCORE
LA Artcore is a non-profit art space dedicated to the creative exploration, discovery, and expression of Los Angeles and global residents while supporting the careers of established and emerging contemporary artists. Run by Pranay Reddy, the gallery is located at 120 Judge John Aiso Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, and is open from Thursday – Sunday from 12 – 4 PM.
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