Splitting their time between Shanghai and New York, Zhu-Nowell is known for their innovative curatorial practice, which reimagines exhibition-making through artist-driven collaborations, speculative inquiry, and the exploration of alternative institutional forms. Their curatorial practice is shaped by histories of globalism, migration, and the hidden infrastructures of cultural exchange, with a particular focus on exhibitions that blur the boundaries between architecture, performance, publishing, and collective study.
At RAM, they have redefined the museum into a space for experimentation, fostering new formats of engagement that extend beyond the gallery space. Under their leadership, RAM has deepened its commitment to commissioning new work, presenting ambitious solo exhibitions by WangShui, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Tosh Basco, Diane Severin Nguyen, Shubigi Rao, Tan Jing, Hu Yun, and Rindon Johnson. Zhu-Nowell also spearheaded the development of AUUUUDITORIUM, a hybrid space that reconfigures the museum as a site for radical pedagogy, operating at the intersection of theater, public forum, and social club. Zhu-Nowell’s curatorial practice moves beyond conventional institutional structures, engaging with post-biennial infrastructures, diasporic narratives, and the entanglements of queerness and fugitivity in contemporary artistic production. Their projects reimagine museums and exhibitions as fluid, temporary architectures—akin to ports, hotels, and trade networks—where encounters, negotiations, and circulations continuously redefine the boundaries of artistic practice. Before joining RAM, Zhu-Nowell was a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2014–2022), where they gained critical recognition for Wu Tsang: Anthem (2021), hailed as one of the best exhibitions of the year by The New York Times. They were also part of the curatorial team behind the landmark exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, a large-scale survey of experimental practices in China from 1989 to 2008, which traveled to Guggenheim Bilbao and SFMOMA.