Umi Hsu (pronouns: they/them) was born in Taipei and moved to Virginia in the United States at age twelve. Hsu is a trans nonbinary sound artist and ethnomusicologist. Combining experimental performance, field recording, ethnographic writing, audio narrative, oral history, and songwriting, they make sound art and audio experiments to trace the contours of migration, stories, and memory. Having a bicultural and bilingual background, they use sound as a paralinguistic medium to surface meanings, reconstruct memory, and forge connections.
Hsu has led community sound project LA Listens, and mobile placemaking collective Movable Parts. They also perform and write songs in ghost pop band Bitter Party. Hsu teaches in the MFA in Media Design Practices program at ArtCenter College of Design, serves on the Advisory Board for The Invisible Archive journal and Digital Transgender Archive, and previously directed exhibitions and programs at One Institute.
Hsu’s sound practice has been featured in LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET, Arts at MIT, Giant Robot, KCHUNG Radio, and Dublab, and presented by LACMA, Rubin Museum, Japanese American National Museum, CTM Festival in Berlin, ONE Archives, Tuesday Night Project, 聽說 Ting Shuo Hear Say in Taiwan, and more. With a PhD in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music from the University of Virginia, Hsu has received fellowships and awards from American Council for Learned Society, Mellon Foundation, Shuttleworth Foundation, City of West Hollywood, NEA, and LA Metro.
