Kayla Tange (b. South Korea) is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist working in video, installation, sculpture, and performance. Adopted into a Japanese American family, her work reclaims personal and collective histories through archival practices, found materials, and text, exploring themes of belonging, displacement, permanence and transformation.
Performing as Coco Ono, Tange addresses spectatorship, labor, and bodily autonomy, using dark humor and satire to confront the commodification of emotional and physical labor. Her work frequently blurs the line between art, performance, and social practice, as seen in co-created shows Stripper Co-op, Cyber Clown Girls, Sacred Wounds, Hwa Records and Private Practices: AAPI Artist and Sex Worker Collection at Los Angeles Contemporary Archive. Collaboration and community-building are central to her practice, transforming stories of shame into symbolic value.
Tange’s work has been presented at Human Resources, Highways Performance Space, and Angels Gate Cultural Center, with performances and screenings at REDCAT, OUTFEST, Asian Pacific Film Festival, and Performance Studies International, Melbourne. Her work has been supported by the California Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, AHL Korean Foundation, and ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries. Her practice has been featured in PAPER, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Artillery, and X-TRA. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art with a minor in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.