Hanshu Ma

Artist & Designer mahanshu03@gmail.com



I continuously build and deconstruct my living systems to navigate shifting cultural and social structures—a strategic approach shaped by my life across China, Canada, and the U.S. I work within the friction between design and art, focusing on unspeakable experiences often overlooked in marginal environments. Drawing from daily life, I stage temporary interventions that unfold through bookmaking, woodworking, sound, and food, evoking a sense of safety and inviting others into a shared space of care.
My practice often begins with small disruptions to everyday routines, sometimes as deliberately designed detours from the original path. I also engage in repetitive bodily acts—drawing, walking, tracing, cleaning—not for the gestures alone but for the traces they leave in memory, beyond language and the literal. In these in-between spaces, I find rhythm. Repetition becomes a spatial memory. Destruction becomes an instrument of healing.
























The Most Gentle RuinsLocation: Brown Center, First Floor
1301 W Mt Royal Ave, Baltimore, MD
Time: May 16–19, 2025
Material: Wood, Cement, People, Trace, Memory
Typeface: Neue Haas Grotesk Text Pro


Hold Me
    Location: Rooftop
    1020 Park Ave, Baltimore, MD
    Time: 16:57, May 2, 2024 
    Material: Wood, Metal, People

Concrete Poetry-Naked City
    Location: Mt Royal Station, First Floor Hallway
    1400 Cathedral St, Baltimore, MD
    Time: 13:00-15:00, December 12, 2024
    Material: Chalk Powder
    Typeface: Neue Haas Grotesk Text Pro

Untitled (Inclusion on handmade paper)
    Location: MICA 15/15 Building, Second Floor
    1515 W Mt Royal Ave, Baltimore, MD
    Time: 13:04, February 17, 2025 
    Material: Yarn, Cotton pulp

Cap
    Location: Rooftop
    1020 Park Ave, Baltimore, MD
    Time: May 2, 2024 
        Material: Purpleheart Wood, Steel

      1+1=
        Location: Rooftop
        1020 Park Ave, Baltimore, MD
        Time: May 2, 2024 
            Material: Purpleheart Wood, Steel

          DJ@Brown

            Location: Brown Center, South Stage
            1301 W Mt Royal Ave, Baltimore, MD
            Time: 05:00-05:20, April 27, 2025
            Material: Ableton Live, Video, Strawberry Cold Brew