The Shu Lea Cheang Papers (1971-2024) contains material related to artworks and films created by Shu Lea Cheang. The material in this collection not only represents one artist but also provides insight into the evolution of multimedia art at the turn of the 20th century when artists began to experiment more with combinations of film, digital, and web-based media. Art installation and film themes in Cheang's work center on political oppression, militarism, racism, heteronormativity, limits to freedom of expression, and technological and environmental issues.

The conception, design, execution, installation, promotion, and exhibition of Cheang's art installations and films are documented in this collection through paper and electronic files dating from 1971 to 2017, with the bulk of materials from 1989 to 2002. Files typically contain correspondence, project proposals, budgets, scripts and drafts, diagrams and sketches, photographic images in various formats, promotional material, and press clippings. Audiovisual material in this collection can be found on a variety of formats and includes recordings from early film producing projects; master edits and negatives of films; and videos used in art installations.

Cheang has generated a large body of work and this collection documents the majority of those artistic projects to some degree, but there are nine works with significant documentation in this collection. Her early work Making News Making History: Live from Tiananmen Square (1989-1990) is a collection of videos created during her two weeks in China, reviewing the media frenzy leading to the military action on June 4th, and similarly, her installation Will Be Televised: Video Documents from Asia (1990) is a series of five one-hour programs compiled from five regions in Asia, documenting camcorder users active in local struggles for press freedom and democracy. Color Schemes (1990) is an installation using the washing machine as a metaphor for the great American "melting pot" of ethnicity, presenting individuals from various ethnic backgrounds "representing" their ethnicity, creating a multi-layered discourse on racism and assimilation. Those Fluttering Objects of Desire (1993) recreates coin-operated pornography booths, with the concept behind it being the construction of desire in categorical ways, the form of the piece speaking to sexual desire as something that is constantly evading the viewer. Bowling Alley (1995) addresses power, access, and desire in public and private spaces within three separate installation sites and a web-based installation. Brandon (1998-1999) is a multifaceted web project that uses the nonlinear and participatory nature of the Internet as a means to explore and illuminate the story of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man, who was raped and murdered in Nebraska by two men when it was discovered that he was anatomically female. This project includes graphic surgery images in paper and electronic form in this collection. Garlic=Richair (2002) was an interactive online art project that imagined a post-capitalist society in the year 2030 in which community wireless would be the only internet and organic garlic the primary currency. Cheang's films Fresh Kill (1994, restored in 2024) revolves around two lesbian parents who are drawn into a corporate conspiracy involving the Fresh Kills Landfill and I.K.U. (2001) is self-described as a cyberporno.

Interspersed between these work files are Cheang's personal photographs; notebooks (1977 to 1997) containing ideas and plans for potential and existing projects; calendars and appointment books; 1977-1978 class papers from NYU; funding proposals and research; press clippings; written correspondence and emails; and recordings containing samples of multiple works most likely used for funding proposals and presentations. The collection contains Paper Tiger TV photographs of filming, notes, and video recordings of some episodes.