Jin Liang
Jin Liang is a researcher, artist and hobby gardener based in Bremen. Her research and interests are public art, social practice art, community gardens, participatory urban planning. Her research’s goal is to investigate the question of the social role of artist in urban area, who develops urban neighborhoods by a particular work of public art. That is, her artistic practice researches the process of how the public is attracted by a given artwork, how this process influences a local community, how this is related to transformative action for social change, and what is the actual nature of these arts and artists.
https://www.instagram.com/lucystomatengarten/
Ongoing projects:
October 2025-present, community and outreach in City University of Applied Sciences Bremen
Closed projects:
June 2025, Outdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt 3 in Großer Düne, Vegesack Bremen
September 2024, Outdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt 2, Kattenturm Bremen
May 2024, Outdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt 1, Kattenturm Bremen
RESUME
ACADEMIC EDUCATION
2024-present, Binational Artistic PhD-Program, PhD student
(2024 as Fellow, 2025 officially as Candidate) University of the Arts Bremen
Thesis: "Publics make public spaces-Social Practice Art and Public Art"
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Martin Schulz, University of the Arts Bremen
Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven, University of Groningen
2022-2023, Fine Arts, guest student
Real Labor in Class Ingo Vetter; University of the Arts Bremen
2020-2022, Integrated Design, Master of Arts
9D Master Studio; University of the Arts Bremen
Thesis: "Public art: How to design waiting space of pediatric clinics with tomato gardening for active communities"
Supervisor: Samuel Nyholm, Martin Schulz
2015-2019, Animation, Bachelor of Arts
Beijing Normal University
Thesis: "Study on the art style of the comic book "Emil and the detectives" Supervisor: Yan Li
TEACHING
WS2025/26, Practical Project Module: Community and Outreach, City University of Applied Sciences Bremen
WS2025/26, Participatory Research 2 – Participatory urban planning, University of the Arts Bremen
SS2025, Participatory Research, University of the Arts Bremen
TALK/CONFERENCE
08/2025, Theme: "Co-creating community garden furniture as arts-based participatory research methodology: Findings from three community projects based in Bremer public housing estates, Germany" in session "New Geographies of the Image", Royal Geographical Society with IBG, Birmingham
11/2024, Theme: "Art in neighborhoods", Science Goes Public, Bremen
EXHIBITIONS
06/2025, Social Design week, Design Zentrum Hamburg, Hamburg
08/2024, Upcycled furniture for community, Elli Community Garden, Bremen
07/2024, Different Futures Make A Dialogue, (con)Temporary crafts studio, Bremen
04/2024, Tomapril solo exihibition, Umweltcontainer, Bremen
11/2023, Annual exhibition, University of the Arts Bremen, Bremen
07/2023, Illustrated recipes exhibition, Elli Community Garden, Bremen
11/2022, MA exhibition, University of the Arts Bremen, Bremen
06/2022, Humor als Strategy in Art, Dauerwelle ship, Bremen
01/2022, Conditions of a Necessity, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden
PORTFOLIO
Photo Copyright: Jin Liang
Press: weserkurier
The short-term arts-based participatory research Ourdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt took place in June 2025 in Vegesack again, it focuses on the visual language of the community building through community garden practices in urban space. Community garden as common collective action practice and one major of public art (Salwa, 2022) allows the practitioners through place-making with their own hands not only to express resistance and their dissatisfaction with reality but also to show their ideal and standard of social life. In June, the researcher invited the local inhabitants to several “get together” events, for instance garden-furniture-DIY-workshops, afternoon tee, and garden exhibition. Then the research analyzed the community with the research questions on how the co-creating community garden performing images and the images of community garden itself contribute to creating affective connections, shaping cultural narratives, and influencing perceptions of this economically-deprived, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Bremen, Germany. It is notable that clan families in this community complex communicate mostly only within their ethnic group, daily increased misunderstandings among residents lead to crimes becoming as daily basis. To improve the public relationship, a few social pedagogic projects were implemented through the cooperation between public housing estate and city administration. Over time, although violent crime continues to drop successfully, there is still room for image change. The creative and participatory research project allowed the participants to communicate their views and feelings in a different way (Coemans et al., 2015). In order to communicate effectively with diverse audiences, we need to be able to see in different shapes and to produce knowledge in different shapes (Leavy, 2011).
Photo Copyright: Jin Liang
In the autumn of 2024, I repeated the community event Ourdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt in a economically-deprived, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Kattenturm, Bremen. There were more participants than last time. For instance, people were more actively bringing their ideas and donating old furniture. The photo shows how we tested the cocktail table project with pocketed coil we found in the neighborhood and with the LED fairy lights and plastic transparent board the participants donated.
Photo Copyright: Jin Liang
In the spring of 2024, I organized a community event Ourdoor Wohnzimmer Werkstatt 1 in a economically-deprived, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Kattenturm, Bremen, where waste management is always problematic. I gathered residents and invited them to join me and my partner Burhan, who lives as a refugee in Germany, in creating a community garden with upcycled furniture. The event continued for seven days and during the workshop open time socially engaged art course and upcycle furniture course for beginners were offered. The participants had the freedom and opportunity to build their community garden in their own aesthetics, but also to meet other neighbors, to express freely, to exchange, to strengthen their social links through this decision-making and placemaking process. In addition to these workshops, during the last two days of the programs we held a party, exhibition and Café inside our new “community garden”. I applied open-ended methodology, which means everyone could contribute to the program and every result of the placemaking was accepted.
More information: https://vskultur.de/ein-nachbarschaftsexperiment-die-outdoor-wohnzimmer-werkstatt/
Photo Copyright: Mara Achenbach
Mapping a gardencity 2030 is a collective temporary intervention during the Lucie community garden´s flea market in 2023, Bremen. Together with two garden members Elke and Linda, we invited the flea market visitors to share their ideas about green spaces in Bremen. Standing on the interactive map of city Bremen, we communicated about how we design the future together, what we need and what are the problems. The visitors could give their statements with color stickers and make notes on the map. This open-ended intervention is still ongoing, the interviews we collected should be evaluated later.
More information: instagram post neustadtbremen