Bz Zhang / 张迪

Bz Zhang / 张迪

b. 1991, USA

Bz (“bees”) is a visual artist, architect, organizer, and educator based on Tongva land (Los Angeles, USA). They are a licensed architect (C39676) in the state of California.

In their art practice, they are interested in sincerity as armor, physical and cultural construction as entangled processes, and the ongoing practice of translation as a deep inquiry into how power and narrative shape one another. As a queer trans non-binary Chinese-diasporic artist, they construct new narratives through intentional misreading, misalignment, hiding in plain sight, and an extreme attachment to certain objects.

In their design and research practice, they use disciplinary tools of art and architecture to imagine futures beyond settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy. In doing so, they wonder aloud about representations of violence and the violence of representations by asking questions both using and about tools of art and architecture.

Bz is a core organizer with the Design As Protest Collective and Dark Matter U and a project manager with the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. They are a 2022 Journal of Architectural Education Fellow and 2022 Twenty Summers Fellow. Previously, they worked as founding member of SPACE INDUSTRIES, the inaugural Citizen Architect Fellow at USC Architecture, a designer at the Metabolic Studio, and a participating artist in Gray Area Foundation’s 2019—2020 Experiential Space Research Lab.

MArch, University of California, Berkeley
BA with Honors, Visual Arts, Brown University

bz (at) bz.studio
CV/résumé available upon request

Recent / Upcoming Events:
June 15, 2024 - GYOPO: “Pacific Imaginaries”
May 18, 2024 - Petrocultures 2024: Los Angeles
October 12-13, 2023 - NOMA 2023: “Out in Architecture: Witnessing LGBTQIA+ Joy to Build Just Futures” & “DMUxNOMA: How to Co-Create Advocacy Campaigns
August 27, 2023 - Arts at Blue Roof: Dominique Moody, in conversation with Bz Zhang
June 28, 2023 - Tech+ LA Conference 2023: Womxn in Technology for Architecture
April 19, 2023 - ISU College of Design & ISU NOMAS: Dark Matter U with Jerome Haferd & Bz Zhang
March 28, 2023 - Woodbury: Bz Zhang
March 2, 2023 - CCA: Bz Zhang, Ratha Lai, and Shreya Shankar, “Architectures of Extraction: A Just Transition Dialogue”
February 16, 2023 - CCNY Spitzer: Bz Zhang & christin hu, “Translations: wǒmen de stories, cóng practice, pedagogy, dào organizing”
February 14, 2023 - WAI Think Tank & ISU College of Design: Unpayable Debts Roundtable
February 10 to 24, 2023 - WAI Think Tank & ISU College of Design: Unpayable Debts
January 19 to 21, 2023 - Intercultural Journeys at Asian Arts Initiative: Table Sessions: Mel Hsu, “Letters to the Moon”
November 19, 2022 - Architectural Humanities Research Association at Pratt Institute: Climate Collectivism
September 30, 2022 - Yale University: (Re)Thinking Landscape: Ways of knowing / Ways of being
July 18, 2022 - 2022 Architecture Beyond Capitalism (The Architecture Lobby): Dark Matter University, Collectivized Pedagogies
June 24 to July 24, 2022 - Tense Renderings: the will and won’t of spatial logics
May 14, 2022 - Twenty Summers: Brenda Zhang (Bz)
April 14, 2022 - USC Architecture Research Symposium
March 10 to April 21, 2022 - DAP Collective: YOU ARE A(NTI)RACIST
March 10, 2022 - CCA: [Un]Commoning Architectural Language
October 21, 2021 - Imagining America: Reflecting on Community Engaged Design
September 27, 2021 - AIANY: Education of the Architect: Radical vs. Incremental Change
September 9, 2021 - DMUxCCNY Identity, Justice, Pedagogy: A Learn-In
June 15, 2021 - Designing in Color: "The Model Minority Myth: Unpacking a Flawed Myth with AAPI Designers"
May 20, 2021 - ACSA x Dark Matter University: Lessons in Anti-Racist Design Pedagogy
April 9, 2021 - The Cooper Union: Brenda Zhang (Bz)
March 26, 2021 - CCA Spring Lecture Series: F. Jason Campbell, Kevin Moultrie Daye, Celeste Martore, & Brenda Zhang (Bz)
March 8, 2021 - GSD Womxn in Design: Workshop with Design As Protest Collective

Press / Publications: 
2024 - Avery Review: To Be a Body along the Perimeter
2024 - Journal of Architectural Education: There is a body(mine), looking.
2023 - ARCHITECT Magazine: Is There Such a Thing As Asian Diasporic Architecture? (Tonia Sing Chi, Bz Zhang)
2023 - The Architect’s Newspaper: WAI Architecture Think Tank’s A Manual of Anti-racist Architecture Education offers tools supporting antiracist practice
2023 - Critical Planning: The El Segundo Refinery: Whiteness, Imperialist Expansion and Extractive Infrastructures (Lillian Liang, Emma Ramirez, Edgar Reyna, Bz Zhang)
2022 - Journal of Architecture Education: Unseen Matters: Emerging Counter-Institutional Pedagogies (Lisa C. Henry, Tonia Sing Chi, Shawhin Roudbari, Bz Zhang)
2022 - UC Berkeley: Architecture Equity Steering Committee hosts Dark Matter University in event series on social justice in design
2022 - ByDESIGN: Brenda (Bz) Zhang: Redefining the Pedagogy, Process & Practice of Architecture
2022 - The Provincetown Independent: Bz Charts Stories of Home and Elsewhere
2022 - ACSA: Inaugural Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) Fellows Announced
2022 - CCA: 10 Codes from the [UN]Commons: A How-To Guide To Worldbuilding
2022 - Architectural Record: Chicago Exhibition Interrogates Design Justice and the Legacy of Racism
2021 - CCA: Advice to Women and Non-Binary Architects Navigating Gender in the Workplace
2021 - Oculus: Dark Matter University: Anti-Racist Frameworks for Transforming Design Education
2021 - B-Asia Magazine (The Bartlett): Diasporic Dialogue with Brenda Zhang / 张迪 and WAI Think Tank
2021 - Room One Thousand: BIRDS OF PASSAGE: Dominique Moody and the Narrative Odyssey Manifesting Artistic Dream (Dominique Moody, Bz Zhang)
2021 - Design As Protest Collective: In Solidarity: DAP Condemns Anti-Asian Violence
2020 - New York Review of Architecture: We Keep Us Safe
2020 - Avery Shorts Live: “The Master’s Concerns” / The Anti-Racism Design Resources by Brenda (Bz) Zhang
2020 - Architect Magazine: Next Progressives: SPACE INDUSTRIES
2020 - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture: 2020 Student Thesis Showcase
2020 - Daily Trojan: LGBTQ online collection connects to pandemic, protests
2020 - Architizer: 100+ Anti-Racist Resources for Architects and Designers
2020 - ONE Archives at USC Libraries: Brenda Zhang (Bz)
2020 - Unpopcultr: 6 Women of Color Artists Talk Creating in Home Studios in The Age of Quarantine
2020 - Hyperallergic: A View From the Easel During Times of Quarantine
2020 - Gray Area Foundation: Artist Brenda (Bz) Zhang Examines Sense of Belonging In the Built Environment
2019 - University of California, Berkeley: Three Recent CED Alumni Selected for Experiential Space Research Lab at SF's Gray Area
2019 - WHYY: How Buildings Impact Our Lives
2017 - University of California, Berkeley: NOT OUR WALL: CED Students Advocate Design for All at Demonstration
2016 - University of California, Berkeley: M.Arch Students Design Art Installation In Response to US Election
2016 - Shakespeare Theatre: Brenda Zhang, Make-and-Take: Paper Cut-outs
2016 - Cool Hunting: "NSFW" at Outlet, Brooklyn
2012 - Brown University: Growing community at the John Hope Settlement House