Yan Wu was born and raised in Shanghai, where the 2000 Shanghai Biennale changed how she saw art, though she first completed a bachelor's in computer science at the University of Guelph. She spent five years in computing while writing and translating for publications including Artforum.cn and ArtReview Asia, and in 2012 curated Mitchell Akiyama's first exhibition at Gendai Gallery.
During her Master of Visual Studies she co-curated the Canadian Pavilion at the Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture with Janine Marchessault, then spent a year as assistant curator on the inaugural Shanghai Urban Space Art Season and held a curatorial residency at U of T's Art Museum, curating the exhibit Making Models. She is now the City of Markham's public art curator and a PhD student at the Daniels Faculty.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023, she co-formed the collective CMBT — Co-conspiracy Means [to] Breathe Together — with fellow patients Kara Hamilton and Patricia Ritacca. CMBT brought artist Scott Rogers's 43-minute soundscape Between Leaf & Light to the Hudson Regional Cancer Centre at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre in Barrie. "I don't believe in vertical monuments. I believe in horizontal monuments," she says.
Reported from Working against spectacle: Meet public art curator and alum Yan Wu, by Nina Haikara (U of T Alumni News, March 20, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/working-against-spectacle-meet-public-art-curator-and-alum-yan-wu