Jam Wu was born in 1979 on a small island called Taiwan that borders the Pacific Ocean. His hometown, Tainan, is the oldest city in Taiwan, with his childhood memories consisting of subtropical Anping Fishing Harbor, folk religion temple culture, and agricultural landscape.
Wu predominately works creatively with paper, focusing on the interconnected possibilities between traditional everyday life and contemporary facets, as he experiments with interpreting his own personal distinctiveness. On the other hand, he also regularly implements participatory projects, examining questions about life and social experiences.
Wu majored in architecture in college, and has a particular fondness for poetry. A recipient of the Cloud Gate Wanderer Project Fellowship upon his graduation, Wu used the grant to travel to the high plains in Northern China where he explored local folk art. He has since created art in a wide array of genres, including installation, video, performance, and often collaborates in cross-disciplinary performing works.
In 2009, he was invited by Watermill Center, founded by Robert Wilson, to create site-specific art. The same year, he became the first artist selected for Taiwan’s Eslite Bookstore “Young Talent Artist” program and presented his premier solo exhibition in the form of a trilogy. In 2010, he participated in the artist residency program at CITE, Paris and also traveled to the Arctic region and the Swiss countryside to survey European folk paper-cutting art in those areas. He was awarded that same year with the First Prize for the Louis Vuitton Cultural Space Audition, and became the first Taiwanese artist to exhibit at the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton. He participated in the cross-disciplinary project, My Dear with Meimage Dance, presented at the National Theater in Taipei. And the work gained 2013 Taishin Arts Award. In 2014, Wu invited to Paris Hermes Petit h, created a leather and silk collection works.
In the performance project, Subsist Worksheet Of An Artist (2012), he offered to give haircuts in exchange for people’s everyday objects, with the intention to explore the statutory definition for the career of being an artist. In On The Way To Hometown About One Urban Youth, which took place in Beijing hutong, or old alleyways, with youths that have migrated to Beijing from elsewhere gathered over a meal to share their thoughts on the ongoing wave of youths returning back home. For the 2013 Looking For Audience, Wu transformed himself into a furniture store clerk to explore issues regarding public participations in exhibitions. In Temporary-A Questionnaire Of Art and Society（2014）,Wu sought temporaries to be placards, like mobile sculptures, proceeded questionnaire conversations in Hsinchu Train Station. PapercutField – Soulangh Project (from 2016), Wu introduces and leads the local ladies getting inspiration from the local environment (Tainan Salt Zone) and doing paper-cutouts.
