Arete is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, storyteller and designer. She is from Aotearoa, New Zealand and is also shaped by her years spent in Brazil and China. Her practice echoes her three homes, her three hearts.

  Xu’s work excavates personal and collective stories within the diaspora experience. She reimagines origin stories for diasporic worlds through sculpture, digital media and performance. Her practice moves between traditional craft mediums and conceptual performance to examine myths of memory, ownership and identity. She hopes to build a new digital folklore, one that resonates with the absence, saudade, and the elusive belonging of ‘in-between’ existence.

Xu’s interest in museums and public institutions stems from a commitment to make amends with absences through museum curation, public programming, and education. Her research in museum archives and institutional histories informs new frameworks of representation. 

Xu’s research background also intersects with her passion for linguistic justice. Having acquired fluency in Mandarin Chinese, English and Portuguese, she connects with diverse audiences in varying registers through arts journalism. Recently, she extended this interest by conducting research in AI language Models and translation mechanisms. 

Arete is pursuing a BFA in Sculpture and concentration in Theory and History of Art and Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has recently worked with the RISD Museum, Pao Arts Centre, and the RISD Center for Arts and Language.

                                                                 

Education
Rhode Island School of Design,  BFA in Sculpture + Concentration in Theory of Art History and Design Providence, RI. 

Selected Exhibitions 
2025    Ultraviolet Catastrophe, Washington Place| Providence, RI
2025    Sensecape, Microsoft Garage |  Soho, NYC
2025   Reframing Representation, RISD Centre for Integrative Technologies | Providence, RI (curated) 
2023   Reflection and Refraction, Washington Place| Providence, RI (curated) 
2022    No Longer Transparent, RISD Museum Gelman Gallery | Providence, RI
2021   Young at Art, Youth Arts New Zealand | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand

Publications 
2025   volume. 1 Spring 2025 Edition, Circling Home: A Roundtable (essay) 
2025   RISD Museum, To the Asian Grocery Aisle! (coming soon)
2024   volume. 1 Spring 2024 Edition, Quickies and Questionings (essay) 
2024   Worlding Englishes: Living Archive (digital publication) 
2023    volume. 1 Spring 2023 Edition, Colliding Scopes (digital publication)
2023    Colliding Scopes Blog (digital publication)

Grants & Awards 
2025    Turner Fund Performative Arts Grant
2022-25   Rhode Island School of Design Honors Dean’s List 
2021    NCEA National Scholarship for Painting, Art History, English, History, and Religious Studies
2021    Contribution to Performing Arts, Rangitoto College