TIANGE LI

Interdisciplinary Artist & Designer, Maker, Educator, Collaborator










Tiange Li (b. China, based in Chicago) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, maker, and educator whose work challenged the functionality in the current design issues. Her works aim to break the boundaries between art and design to address the social issues. After earned her master degree in Rhode Island School of Design, her current works explored the vulnerability of life, the paradoxical and relative nature of death and existence, the grief and nostalgia tied to an imagined home.



CONTACT
tiangeli1231@gmail.com
tli457@wisc.edu

Arts Catalog

2025

2024


2023





2022
You Are  Gone

Grief
Home

When Time To Die,Flout Life
Out of Control
3D Type Cookbook
You Don’t Have to Say Anything
Sacrifice

Daur Calendar
Unrealistic Reality
Symbiosis-01

Design portfolio will be provided based on request. 
ExhibitionSolo Show
Fragmentation 2025
Backspace Gallery
 
Group Show
Radial Point 2024
Backspace Gallery   
                               
As Human As Possible 2023 
Backspace Gallery   

From the Ground Up 2023
The Front Space Galley    
 
Arts in Isolation 2021 
North Dakota Art Museum                             
 
Drawing Marathon 2020
Waterman Building, Providence, RI    
            
Curation
Forms of Expression 2024
Gallery 7                  
                                                  
Rhode Island School of Design Grad Show 2021 
Providence, RI                                       


 

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Last Updated 24.10.31


Grief 2024


Linen tread, olive wood,museum board
Like oil, water,and other natural resources, language is a product of cultures and power. Inherently tied to power and scarcity, languages are not always sufficient or effective for communication. Grief is an interdisciplinary artwork that expresses the unspeakable nature of the complex human response to the significant loss following the global pandemic — a response that is acute, lingering, and indelible. By integrating digital fabrication techniques such as laser engraving and experimenting with the materiality of paper and wood, the traumatic and irreparable loss in the post-COVID era is expressed through a tangible experience.


You Were Gone
2025
The intention behind this work is not to design a beautiful or functional chair, but to reflect on the deeper significance of the chair within the domestic space. Furnitures are containers that hold memories of the past, the present, and the imagination of an idealized future. The impression of a domestic space reflects the inner space.
From concept to realization, this piece reflects emotional design over functionality. Rather than focusing on ergonomic support, it highlights the precarious and unstable living conditions faced by displaced populations in the context of global immigration. The chair becomes a metaphor—not just a place to rest, but a symbol of home, identity, and belonging. Through this object, the project seeks to evoke the tension between rootedness and displacement, permanence, and transience.


Home 2023
Laser engraved on paper 



When Time To Die
Flout Life
2023
Through exploring how trans-generational trauma casts lasting shadows over individual families, this book presents two printed works. The first, a perfect-bound book, functions as a dictionary that recalls objects from earlier generations in China. Each item carries a general meaning, while also holding special significance for specific families. The second, an accordion-style brochure, narrates critical events experienced by earlier generations.


Out of Control 
2023
The phrase "out of control" encapsulates a state of uncontrollability. While food and stuffed toys typically evoke happiness, I utilized them to underscore the detrimental effects of losing control. Through extreme deformation and distortion showcased in the two videos, I emphasized the destructive nature of loss.



3D TYPE COOKBOOK This book explores the possibilities of transforming type into 3D forms through CAD software, from design to fabrication. The types designed here do not have practical functions but aim to explore expressions of type beyond the two-dimensional plane and existing forms in a joyful experimental method.

Research and works were collected in Professor Taekyeom Lee’s Advanced Typography.


You Don’t Have to Say Anything 
2023

Creature Design
An imagined creatured designed rethink that language is insufficient to communicate because of the differences between cultures and individual experiences. 


Sacrifice
2023
Sacrifice is a set of chess pieces that reflects on the current Russia-Ukraine war and questions who the real beneficiaries behind it are.


Daur Project
2022
Daur People are a Mongolic ethnic group who have historically resided in the northeast of China. Today, with a population of only thirteen thousand, knowledge of Daur culture and arts is rare. Very few descendants of the Daur still speak their language. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has classified the Daur language as endangered in the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Due to long-term political and economic marginalization, the indigenous written language of the Daur People no longer exists.

This project delved into the origins of the Duar written language, tracing it back to the Khitan Language, and explored the traditional Daur ornamentation, aiming to study and recreate these elements to depict Daur costom visually.


Symbiosis - 01
2022
Symbiosis is a experimental project exploring child-parent relationship.




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