LENA CHEN

We Lived In The Gaps Between The Stories is a participatory artwork by Lena Chen celebrating the labor of abortion providers, midwives, healers, herbalists, doulas, clinic escorts, and all who care for abortion seekers. In a reciprocal act of labor, the artist worked with Cincinnati florist Patricia Campos, herbalist Ellie Mae Mitchell, growers Village General and Camp Washington Urban Farm, and chef Madeline Ndambakuwa to create a series of public programs using abortifacients and emmenagogues (plants with contraceptive properties). Visitors were invited to contribute to the project by writing thank you letters and co-creating a communal wreath displayed at Wave Pool Gallery. Abortion workers were then honored in a gratitude ceremony where they are presented with individual wreaths and a collective poem recognizing their work.

Full Circle is a participatory art project that engages communities of birth workers in sharing stories about their labor experiences. A soundscape of birth workers' testimonies is played over a wreath collectively crafted using flowers and plants associated with fertility.

Lena Chen (b. 1987, San Francisco) is a Chinese American artist creating performances and socially engaged art in live and virtual contexts. Awarded Mozilla Foundation’s 2022 Creative Media Award and Best Emerging Talent at the 2019 B3 Biennial of the Moving Image, her work has appeared at Transmediale (Berlin), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin),  Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Museum of Modern Art (Antwerp), Centre for Contemporary Art (Derry~Londonderry), Times Art Center (Berlin), Färgfabriken (Stockholm), INVERSE Performance Art Festival (Bentonville), Tempting Failure (London), and Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival, among others.

She has been awarded grants and residencies from Sundance Institute, Mozilla Foundation, UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, Millay Colony for the Arts, Pittsburgh Foundation, Office of Public Art, Burning Man Global Arts Fund, Civic Media Lab, Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Wave Pool Gallery, Women’s Media Center, and Kelly Strayhorn Theater. A founding member of the artist collective, Maternal Fantasies, she is the recipient of the Arthur Boskamp Foundation Advancement Award 2019/2020. She has spoken widely on feminist art and activism at venues such as Oxford, Yale, Stanford, Ars Electronica, SXSW, and re:publica. She is the founder of Heal Her, an expressive arts initiative that has convened storytelling circles, festivals, and events in seven countries for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

She earned a BA in sociology from Harvard University and a MFA at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. She is pursuing a PhD in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley.