Moya Sun is a landscape practitioner who is dedicated to using design and art to develop imaginative research and creative projects. Sun believes an understanding of a collective nature of human and non-human is needed to connect individuals for a sustainable future. She received her BLA from Tongji University in 2014 and MLA from University of Pennsylvania in 2017.
She now lives in Philadelphia, and works at OLIN as a landscape designer.
FOCUS:
Sun’s focus is to treat landscape design and public art as event triggers, where a shared awareness among multiple roles in the dynamic social dialogue is cultivated and celebrated. Her projects investigate critical thinking about the shifting global environment, practical site design based on multiple field study methods, and creative place-making for collective memory preservation. The shared materials, tools, processes, artifacts, and impacts between the field of landscape and art are the bridges of her practice on the perception of nature and living environment. The combination of the objectivity of scientific knowledge and the emotional perception is often found in her works, reflecting the hidden narratives of land in a surrealistic form.
Sun uses site-specific design and installations as research through action of which the outcome is not predetermined, and the engagement of natural process and the public audience is fully trusted and respected. In her past installation works, the connection among individuals and the collection of individuals is always a core concept to visualize the shared awareness.
SKILLS:
Years of being a visual artist and a sharply trained landscape designer gifts Sun the ability to come up with creative and efficient solutions with a large range of techniques, from digital visualization with GIS, Rhino and Grasshopper, to conceptual capturing of site profiles with drawings, paintings, land art and conversations. Through all the inspiring collaborations with city planners, architects, artists and curators, Sun realized the issue of land and nature is more than spatial or environmental and it takes a collaborative endeavor to bring ideas into practices. Experiences of being the leading artist for exhibitions and installations enriched her skills of multitasking, target goal identifying, time managing, emotion managing, and working independently with clear strategies. Skills in photography, visual editing, curating, writing and internet-based marketing allow Sun to expand the impact of land-based projects further and look for alternative models of studio works in the digital era.
To say hi:
moyasun@alumni.upenn.edu