Layna Wang is a Chicago-based sound artist, composer, and educator working across experimental performance, archival audio, and community-based arts facilitation. With a background in classical opera and a practice shaped by their experience as a queer, trans artist undergoing vocal transition on testosterone, Layna uses voice and sound to examine how identity, power, and cultural belonging are shaped—and how they might be reimagined.

Their work focuses on developing public-facing projects that help people understand who they are—and who they might become—within the systems and communities they inhabit. Through participatory scores, field recordings, educational programming, and site-specific installations, Layna creates spaces for reflection, dialogue, and practical engagement. They aim to challenge traditional hierarchies in the arts and advocate for accessibility that deepens complexity rather than reducing it.

Layna is the founder of Interwoven Arts, an arts organization supporting creative education and cross-cultural exchange through music and storytelling. Their recent projects include Sacred Soundscapes of Chicago, a participatory audio archive mapping the city’s spiritual diversity, and Bathtime?, an immersive performance interrogating identity and embodiment in classical training settings through improvisation. They are an Interfaith America Emerging Leader and currently serve as Program Manager at the Chinese Fine Arts Society. Their work draws on sound studies, improvisation, and liberatory pedagogy to build spaces where people investigate the systems that shape their lives, unlearn inherited narratives, and develop everyday storytelling practices that foster both personal and collective agency.

For collaborations, commissions, or inquiries, contact:

layna.s.wang (at) gmail.com