Doreen Chan

Doreen Chan (b.1987, Hong Kong) is a mixed-media artist focusing on social practice. She was trained in visual communication and photography before receiving her MA in Art Education from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. In her work, Chan re-examines the tensions between interpersonal relationships and subject formation. Through collecting, selecting, and reorganizing fragments from everyday life, she explores how individuals interact with collective and personal memories. She works site-specifically on installations, public programs, virtual projects, and collaborates with a wide range of individuals using images, sculptures, objects, sounds, and performances.

Chan has exhibited in institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival 2022 (Linz), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Art Omi (New York), and Para Site (Hong Kong). In 2023, her commissioned project, Sipping Dreams, inaugurated Tai Kwun Contemporary’s V Hall. In the same year, she was listed as ArtReview China’s Future Greats. In 2021, she was an Eyebeam fellow and the 4th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group finalist. She was also selected as Cultured Magazine’s Young Artists (2021). Chan currently lives in New York.

https://www.doreenchan.com/

HalfDream: Promotional Video

2021, 5’40

HalfDream, on-going participatory project since 2021, collects dream content of people in different regions and matches common dreams to facilitate dreamers to connect based on dreams instead of societal boundaries. HalfDream has collected over 4200 dreams mainly via showing its’ online platform (HalfDream.org) with site specific installations, which created semi-public spaces in exhibitions in Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Paris, Xiamen, Beijing, and Hong Kong. 

Chan began HalfDream as a response to the distances among people from the social upheaval in Hong Kong where she grew up—as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. With the recent near-universal experiences of separation between friends, families and communities, Chan continues HalfDream in collaborating with dreamers to create artworks based on their dreams and conducting clay workshops for dreammate pairs to exchange emotions and personal stories.

Created with the dreamers, HalfDream: promotional video shows how the memories of the two pairs of HalfDream dreammates intermingle.

Video Commissioned by VH AWARD of Hyundai Motor Group