Yupeng Wu (she/her) is a historian of seventeenth to nineteenth centuries Chinese and British visual culture, with particular interests in materiality, craft, the history of collecting, optical toys, natural history, and the disciplinarity and historiography of art history. She is currently a PhD student at Yale University in the department of History of Art. As a maker (knitter and weaver), Yupeng advocates for bringing practical experiences of making and handling objects into art historical writing and learning.
Prior to joining Yale, Yupeng worked as the Assistant Curator at The Postal Museum in London, where she worked with a diverse collection of artworks and objects predominantly from Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a focus on reframing and uncovering untold narratives to reveal their global connections. She also worked at the Kamel Lazaar Foundation (London/Tunis) as a Curatorial Assistant, supporting artistic projects and cultural initiatives in the MENA region.
Yupeng holds a BA from Bryn Mawr College and an MA with high distinction from the Courtauld Institute of Art, both in History of Art. Her previous work has been recognised through the Association for Art History (UK) Postgraduate Dissertation Prize and The Courtauld Prize for Outstanding MA Dissertation.
