Tingyi Jiang

Tingyi Jiang is an artist and performer based in The Hague. She uses performance as a tool to engage with the world through her practice, which she calls situation-specific performance. By claiming the ‘situation’ as a stage, appropriating ‘rules’ as scores, and using ‘action’ as material, she transforms implicit social norms into performative acts—blending reality and fiction to explore themes of identity, memory, language, and authority. At the heart of her work is the concept of ‘fitting’—both as a creative method and a critical lens. This inquiry led to her ongoing series Make It Fit (initiated in 2021), which examines how both individuals and structures of authority navigate to systems through the condition of ‘fit.’ The series spans a range of formats, including theater, interventions, publications, participatory events, performative texts and sound-based works. Tingyi’s methodology centers on performative scores that offer structure while leaving room for contingency and improvisation. Guided by conceptual rules, the performer’s embodied, responsive presence engages in a live negotiation with the situation. Her practice is continuously shaped by its context. In response to cultural funding cuts and growing institutional pressures, it becomes a structural experiment in adaptive, sustainable performance-making. Within this framework, ‘fitting’ evolves from an act of submission into a performative negotiation—a space for reclaiming voice, narrative, and presence. As both a maker and performer, Tingyi has collaborated with various artists and has showcased her work at venues and events such as Fiber Festival, GOGBOT Festival, Korzo Theater, Melkweg Amsterdam, Contour Biennale 10, Teatro Municipal do Porto, ISEA2022, CTM x Athens Epidaurus Festival, This Art Festival, iii workspace, Het Hem, V2_, VIERNULVIER, and Zaal 3 Den Haag.