Whats My Thesis?

In this intimate conversation hosted at Don’t Look Projects for her solo show By the Company They Keep, the Chenhung Chen traces a path from formative memories of classroom murals in Taiwan to a tactile, spiritually inflected sculptural practice rooted in the poetics of material and memory. Drawing on a lifetime of cross-cultural experience—born in Taiwan, educated in New York at the School of Visual Arts, and now based in California—Chen reflects on the diasporic transformations that shaped her worldview, her practice, and her understanding of artistic responsibility. Over the course of the episode, she speaks candidly about the lasting impact of calligraphy, the subtle power of Taoist and Confucian thought, and the slow labor of crochet and wire weaving as acts of embodied meditation. Her early engagement with Chinese ink painting, which emphasizes the expressive qualities of line and brushstroke, has evolved into three-dimensional constructions made from recycled electrical wires and cables—materials charg