Do You See What I See? Artist Yasmine Anlan Huang’s Hypnotic Work Poses the Question

AGE: 29
BASED IN: New York and London

In Yasmine Anlan Huang’s Her Love is a Bleeding Tank—featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial—the Guangzhou-born artist refracts both the yearning and alienation of girlhood through a cartoon image projected onto an increasingly watery eye. The video poem distills Huang’s cross-media interest in channeling the codes of melodrama and the “good girl” archetype into work that probes everything from fetish to techno-capitalism. Her second book, Becoming Everyone, Everywhere, will be published early 2026.

Imagine someone gives you $150,000 to make anything you want—no strings. What are you making?

This would be ideal for realizing my first medium-length film, which I am currently fundraising for. It centers on an optical condition known as a rosette cataract, which, as its name suggests, manifests as a rosette pattern in the eye. The protagonist wakes to find herself afflicted with it, and as she adapts to this metaphorical affliction, her altered vision causes her to romanticize war, pain, and violence.

In my previous films, I didn’t have the resources to fully realize the haunting, intertwining beauty and violence of my vision. For this one, the central optical effect cannot be achieved by makeup but requires CGI, which I’m no expert in and costs a lot. With this no-strings-attached money, I could work with specialists of CGI and lighting to realize the work’s full potential.

Describe your work in three words.

Self-referential, innocent, and monumental.

What’s an underrated studio tool you can’t live without?

Honestly, since I travel so frequently and have to pack everything—like works, tools, etc.—into my 30-inch luggage, it’s hard to imagine anything I could truly not live without. In such conditions, everything seems disposable. In a sense, my luggage becomes my studio. With that being said… do Bluetooth speakers and professional headphones count as studio tools or studio vibe boosters?

Is there a studio rule you live by?

Follow the spreadsheet and calendar entry, and never be a deadline fighter!