Mali Wu (Chinese: 吳瑪悧; born 1957) is a Taiwanese artist, writer, and activist working with social practice and conceptual art.
She enrolled at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria in 1980, but transferred to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany, where she studied sculpture under Günther Uecker and Klaus Rinke from 1982 to 1986.
Also in 1998, Wu created Formosa Club, inspired by both the debates on licensed prostitution in Taiwan and the broader question of the relationship between women and the economy.
[5][1]: 161 Another notable work from this period is Birds Slide over the Sky (1998) which is about the displacement of Taiwanese men after World War II.
After understanding the impact that the Awakening from Your Skin series had on a group of female textile workers, Wu decided to transform her practice into being more socially engaged.
In 2007, she organized a conference "Art and Public Sphere: Working in Community"—and later edited a volume of the same title—to unite local practitioners, theorists, and officials.
[2] In 2018 she was an artist in residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore[9] and co-curator of the 11th Taipei Biennial with Francesco Manacorda.
[11] Wu and Manacorda curated a multi-media exhibition featuring works such as Zheng Bo’s “Pteridophilia” and Julian Charrière’s An Invitation to Disappear.
[11] In September 2022, Wu worked on "Food First - an art based research project" as part of the Bellagio Residency for the Rockefeller Foundation.