Art/Research/Teaching
Driving by Curiosity, Guided by Empathy
BIO
Kathy H. Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work explores identity, power, and imagination through the politics and poetics of touch. Her research spans participatory design, critical game worlds, and arts-based methods to examine how personal and collective narratives are shaped, felt, and transformed across media, systems, and institutions.
Zhou’s practice investigates the emotional and structural conditions of othering, alienation, and marginalization while exploring how creative acts of reaching—both metaphorically and materially—can generate new forms of connection, care, and community. Through immersive storytelling, speculative design, and collaborative inquiry, she uses creativity to critique dominant systems and prototype alternate futures grounded in empathy and relational knowledge.
In her work, touch becomes a method—a way of sensing injustice, navigating trauma, and building shared meaning. Her projects ask what it means to come into contact with one another, with memory, and with place and how such contact might become a foundation for resistance, recognition, and reimagining belonging.
Based in Toronto, Zhou is an emerging artist whose work has been recognized by the 2017 OCAD Career Launcher Prize. As a multi-time recipient of the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, her scholarly research was awarded Best Paper in Technology Innovation by the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) in 2023.
CV
EDUCATION
2021 - Curr Ph.D. Student, University of Toronto
2018 -2020 MA, University of Toronto
2014 -2017 BFA, OCAD University
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 Wasteland, Prometheus Art Gallery, Oakville, Canada
2024 Wanderers' Whispers/浮乡手信, Toronto, Canada
2024 Mid Summer, Todmorden Mills Gallery, Toronto History Museums, Toronto, Canada
2024 All You Can Eat, Northern Contemporary Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2023 Heterotopia Garden, OCAD University Graduate Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2023 A Room of One’s Own, Toronto, Canada
2023 E. W. S. N. Intersectionalism, Toronto, Canada
2020 Covid-19 Portraits, Gallery1313, Toronto, Canada
2018 Attachment & Detachment: Emerging Young Artist (Toronto, Canada)
2017 Art Toronto 2017, Toronto, Canada
2017 Gradex 102, OCAD University, Toronto, Canada
2017 Forward Motion Screening, Ostello Tasso Theator, Florence, Italy
2017 Una Piccola Scintilla, On Art Gallery, Florence, Italy
2016 Across the Ocean, film and video exhibition, New York City, US
2016 Art of Leverage: Group Exhibition, Toronto, Canada
2015 Futura: Art and Technology Experimental Exhibition, Daniels Spectrum, Toronto, Canada
2014 Awenda Inspired Exhibition, Toronto, Canada Green Winter, group exhibition at OCAD
University, Toronto, Canada
2014 Breakout, Toronto Subway Billboard Project, Toronto, Canada
2012 Drawing, House of Memory Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2009 Portrait of a Woman, Permanent Collection, SNUC, Visual Art Museum, Chengdu, China
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS
2025 Zhou, K. H., Pullen, C., & Slotta, J. D. (2025) Public Sphere in Dystopia: a Game-based Youth Participatory Action Research, College of Art Association, 113th Annual Conference, New York City
2024 Zhou, K. H., Fong, C., Pullen, C., & Slotta, J. D. (2024) From Youth Participatory Art to Vision and Action: A Framework for Game-based Research-Creation, a short paper at the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2024, International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2024 Zhou, K. H., Pullen, C., & Slotta, J. D. (2024) Digging the Abandoned Feelings Out of the Wasteland: Raising Trouble Makers through A Dystopian Critical Action Game, a poster at the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ISLS 2024, International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2024 Zhou, K. H., Pullen, C., & Slotta, J. D. (2024) A Critical Action Game: Fall of Artica Investigating new forms of collective inquiry for critical action, Roundtable Session titled “Engaging Our Students & Ourselves: Teaching in New Dimensions and Contexts”, Division C - Learning and Instruction/Division C - Section 1b: Humanities, Social Sciences, Fine Arts at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
2023 Zhou, K. H., Pullen, C., Holmes, J., & Slotta, J. D. (2023). Supporting Collective Inquiry in a Critical Action Game: A Role for Open AI Conversational Agents. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning-CSCL 2023, pp. 428-431. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2023 Zhou, K. H., & Slotta, J. D. (2023). A Dystopian Game for Change: Building Asynchronous Learning Network Through Co-Design Partnerships Across Disciplines. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2023, pp. 2169-2170. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
2023 Zhou, K.H., Slotta, J. D. (2023) A Dystopian Game for Change: Co-Design Partnerships In English, STEM, and Arts. Presented at a Poster Session titled “SIG-LS Poster Session 1: Games, Embodiment, Design, and Computational Thinking” at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). 10.3102/IP.23.2017258
2022 Zhou, K.H. (2022). FALL OF ARTICA: A DYSTOPIAN GAME FOR CHANGE(Master Thesis, University of Toronto).
2021 Raman, P., Carvalho, R., Ghasempour, E., Zhou, K.H, Slotta, J. (2021). Supporting Students’ Critical Action within a Cultural Context: A Role for Arts-based Pedagogy in a Community of Learners. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2022. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
PRESS
2024 Article, Critical Action Games: Examples of Critical Action Games Fall of Artica ( FoA Game) — ISLS 2023 tech innovation award, Critical Action Learning Exchange, Canada
2024 Article, THE LEARNING FLOWS BOTH WAYS IN LONGSTANDING OISE-UTS PARTNERSHIP: Brining in New Teaching Methods, University of Toronto Schools, Canada
2023 Interview, Artist introduction for Artivition Projects, 105.6 radio, Canada
2023 Interview, Kathy H. Zhou’s Artist-ResearcherJourney in Canada, University of Toronto Chinese Alumni Association
2023 Interview, Giving back to the local art community as an AGO Curator Circle Patron, Magazine for Members of the Art Gallery of Ontario
2022 Artist interview, Shinning Female Artrepreneur #BreakTheBias, Buick Canada
2019 Interview, Artist introduction of 2116: Art Of Leverage, OMNI TV Exhibition (Toronto, Canada)
2018 Artist Interview, Kathy H. Zhou, Fairchild TV, Canada
2017 Interview, Numeroventi Artist Residency, Florence, Italy Film Screening, “Florence, Genuine Leather, Made in Italy,” Foreigners in Florence, Italy
2016 Artist Interview, Kathy H. Zhou, OMNI TV, Canada
AWARD
2023
Outstanding Tech Innovation Award, Internation Society of Learning Sciences
2023
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (Doctoral)
2022
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (Doctoral)
2021
University of Toronto OISE Ph.D. Fellowship
2019
University of Toronto NEST Program Fellowship
2017
OCAD University Florence Program Fellowship
2017
OCAD University Career Launcher Prize Winner (Drawing & Painting)