Ann Chen is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher making work that reflects upon environment, ecology, technology, diaspora and colonialism. She is presently a research affiliate at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania where she is studying systems of environmental hazards, waste and wasted labor of the semiconductor industry. This fall (2022), she will be an adjunct professor at NYU Tisch’s Low-Residency MFA in Interactive Media Arts and a resident artist at Culturehub (NYC) working in collaboration on a VR and sound installation about Asian diasporic communities.
Ann has been in residence at the Rebuild Foundation, UnionDocs, Recess Art, Freeport Institute and China Residencies. She received the inaugural Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship (2014-15) in Canada where she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Alberta in the English and Film Studies Department documenting a proposed oil pipeline in Alberta and British Columbia. She also received a Fulbright-Canada Eco Leadership Grant (2016) to lead mapping workshops for youth in collaboration with Saulteau First Nations. She was an Assistant Arts Professor in Interactive Media Art (2017-20) and Executive Director at Triangle Arts Association (2004-06). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Logic Magazine, mouth2mouth and the National Geographic Newsroom. She is a member of the research collective The Nomadic Department of the Interior (NDOI).