Sam Hsieh is a conceptual artist and designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Raised in the American South with ancestral ties to the Indigenous Paiwan people of southern Taiwan, Hsieh draws from a transitory upbringing between Arkansas, California, and Taiwan—experiences that shape her exploration of identity, displacement, and cultural memory.
Hsieh has experience as an educator and instructor at UC Berkeley in the Architecture and History of Art departments. Her work has been selected for the UC Berkeley NAAB Exhibition in 2024 and has been displayed at the 2024 Thesis Exhibition.
With a background in both fine art and architecture, Hsieh investigates modes of representation to reframe the spatial and symbolic significance of everyday objects, particularly within domestic environments. Her current body of work focuses on reinterpreting play spaces, examining narratives within the framework of playground equipment and how these stories are carried across generations and geographies.
Artist Bio
My work explores how memory lives through material and form. I am drawn to ordinary objects and structures that carry traces of touch and use. These forms are familiar yet fleeting, tied to moments that often pass unnoticed but gain meaning when revisited.
Much of this interest comes from a personal experience of loss and instability. Moving frequently and losing my father at a young age made me attuned to how fragile memory can be, and how the most mundane details can take on extraordinary weight over time. In my practice, I abstract these fragments of memory, transforming them through material processes that obscure, protect, or suspend them.
The making process in my work is ritualistic and repetitive, utilizing methods such as crocheting, rubbings on paper, and crafting iterative objects. These meditative techniques give form to objects that invite viewers to engage with collective memories, fostering connections through emotional resonance.
Whether intimate or architectural, each work becomes both a presence and a memorial. By interrupting function and shifting everyday forms into spaces of reflection, I hope to create objects that resonate beyond my own story, carrying the tenderness and impermanence of memory into shared experience.