Colette Fu received her MFA in Fine Art Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2003. In 2008 she received a Fulbright Fellowship to photograph the 25 ethnic minorities of her mother’s hometown of Yunnan Province, China. Her mother from the Black Yi (Nuosuo) tribe.

Colette has created most of her work at artist residencies such as the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Instituto Sacatar, Bemis Center, Visual Studies Workshop, the Millay Colony, and the Alden B. Dow Center for Creativity. She has received awards from Fulbright, the Independence Foundation, Sovereign Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Constance Saltonstall Foundation, En Foco, Photographer's Forum, Nikon, the Puffin Foundation and the Society for Photographic Education. She has worked as a paper engineering consultant for stop animation commercials, freelances and teaches pop-up courses, digital photography and community workshops at various art centers and institutions internationally.

I make photographic collages and collapsible artist’s books that combine my photography with pop-up paper engineering. Pop-up and flap books originally illustrated ideas about astronomy, fortune telling, navigation, anatomy of the body and other scientific principles. This history prompted me to construct my own books reflecting ideas on how our selves relate to society today.

My work is a way for me to speak, mediate, express, delight and inform. Collaging pop-ups allows me to combine intuitive design and technical acuity with my love of traveling as I try to understand the world around me. With my work I want to eliminate the boundaries between book, installation, photography, craft and sculpture.