CuratorSpace Artist Bursary #33: Junshu Gu

Junshu Gu is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and flâneuse, working across painting, sculpture, installation and time-based media. Her current research centres on the absent figure of the female flâneur within historical narratives and contemporary urban discourse. Through walking-based fieldwork, writing, sound and object-making, she explores how women move through, read, and are interrupted by public space.

Her project, Portable Devotions: Rituals of Passage, extends her ongoing research into the figure of the flâneuse by exploring the relationship between movement and vulnerability. Building on her understanding of wandering as an embodied practice shaped by vigilance and continual self-adjustment, she focuses on the material and symbolic companions of this mobility.

Drawing on both Western and Eastern cultural traditions, Junshu’s research examines portable forms of devotion, including talismans, relics, devotional manuals and apotropaic artefacts. The Book of Hours and the tradition of ex-votos serve as key points of reference, providing a framework through which she considers contemporary forms of ritual and protection.

Through access to specialist craft training and collection-based research, Junshu will develop an artist's book that functions as a devotional companion, bringing together field notes, writing, visual research and material experimentation. Conceived as an alternative prayer book, it will operate as both a portable object to accompany her on her walks and an archive of the enquiry. Alongside this, she will produce a 16mm film that reflects on the observations and encounters that emerge through the research process.

Junshu Gu holds an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art and has exhibited in London and internationally. Her moving image work has been screened at Tate Modern Lates and ICA London, and has received awards from international film festivals. Recognition for her sculptural and installation-based works includes the Aesthetica Art Prize, the Visual Artist Association Artist of the Year Award and the Visual Art Open. She is currently based in London, where she continues her practice through the Conditions Studio Programme.

You can find out more about the CuratorSpace Artist Bursary and how to apply at bursary.curatorspace.com.

Image credit: Junshu Gu, I Hope This Finds You Well, Photographic print on polyester film, 2023

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