In this episode, we entrusted curator and scholar Karin Oen to converse with our Artist-in-Residence Yanyun Chen. The two come together for a fascinating conversation revolving around the significance of the studio in Yanyun’s practice, revealing how it can act as a stable space for generative experimentation, exploration, and inspiration during transitional periods. Throughout the exchange, Yanyun divulges the importance of materiality in her practice, how the residency has influenced new modes of thinking and working, and the innocuous comments that kindled her interest towards her current research project. They also touch upon Yanyun’s concurrent practices, contemplating the value in allowing them to unfold and weave together naturally.

Dr. Yanyun Chen is a visual artist who works across drawings, new media, and installation. Her artistic practice unravels fictional and philosophical notions of embodiment exploring how heritage and legacies are grounded in the physicality of human and botanical forms.

Dr. Karin Oen is a curator and art historian based in Singapore where she is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Art History at NTU’s School of Humanities. She works on historical, modern, and contemporary creative practices related to the transcultural and the transmediatic. 

Contributors: Yanyun Chen, Karin Oen
Editor: Magdalena Magiera
Programme Manager: Nadia Amalina
Sound Engineer: Ashwin Menon
Intro & Outro Music: Zachary Chan
Cover Image & Design: Arabelle Zhuang, Kristine Tan