Lena Chen

✨ Incredible news to share!!! I’ve been awarded a 2025 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for my PhD research 🥹 As a humanities scholar and one half of an artist couple, I cannot emphasize how much this financial support means for my family and me. I gave up my teaching stipend when I moved to LA after coursework and have been making ends meet with a much reduced adjunct salary for teaching a remote course for University of Rhode Island. This fellowship means I don’t have to teach next year and can concentrate on research and writing. I admit I feel really conflicted about receiving a fellowship at a moment when the very few resources available to support this work are under threat. There are plenty of folks who are just as deserving and whose funding streams have disappeared at precisely the moment when the humanities matter most. I still don’t know if the academy is where I want to end up but I am grateful that I can spend the next year working with Asian American artists, sex workers, and organizers who are enacting change within and beyond institutions. Getting recognition like this fellowship absolutely matters, but what drives me to keep going on a day-to-day basis (and when the university continues to work against so many of us) is my deep belief in the necessity of documenting these stories so that others can learn from their movement-building. Huge thank you to my advisers, Roshanak Kheshti, Shannon Jackson @shannonjacksonucb , and especially Juana María Rodríguez @radiorodriguez for all her guidance throughout the application process. I’m also excited to be working with Susette Min as my external mentor for this fellowship! I feel so lucky to have this incredible group of women academics (and parents!) on my team. And now for a photo carousel of my collaborators, co-conspirators, and yes, fave conference outfits 🎉 All the things that have made this academic journey worth it! Headshot by @oddtresleches

OnlyBans has just made its California debut at @honorfrasergallery in Los Angeles! Created by sex workers and allies, OnlyBans is a digital game that shows the experiences of real sex workers facing online surveillance, social media censorship, and financial discrimination. Nearly four years since its conception, this work has traveled the world, been featured everywhere from Rolling Stone to Hyperallergic, and continues to resonate with sex worker communities and beyond. As so many sex workers predicted, content moderation algorithms have disproportionately harmed the already marginalized. Technology created to block allegedly sexual content has also been used to block unfavorable political content (such as material related to movements for Black lives, abortion rights, and Palestinian liberation). This is the third version of the game, which has gone through continuous development thanks to feedback from community members. After folks told us Version 2 was very realistic but depressing (reflecting the actual world we live in), we decided to take a more sci-fi approach in Version 3 to imagine future possibilities for a liberated Internet. Our newest version, which includes a supernatural entity named M0THER, was inspired by the dreams and altars shared by sex workers in workshops we co-hosted with @decodingstigma . Thank you to all the sex workers, artists, and activists who continue to work, create, and agitate online and offline. You are our heroes, and we made OnlyBans for and with you. Play the game: onlybansgame.com/play CREDITS Creator: Lena Chen @lenachen Narration Nympho: Lena Chen Software Princess: Maggie Oates @cheerioates Graphic Designer & Videographer: Goofy Toof @goofytoof Sound Designer: Avatar Lilith @l.i.lith Web Baby: SH @chinesebbyx0 Image and Story Contributors: Amala Azul, @faebrite , @___hellbait___ , @themmeheals , @lyncjohnson3x , Quin, @thatwomanisangry , Nimina Harley, Stonerdomme

Life has never been sweeter with my crouching tiger and hidden dragon 🐅🐉 Who knew “mommy” would end up being my favorite line on the CV? Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there ❤️

Performance documentation from Blood Work🩸Asian American Congealment and Visceral Abstraction CW: 🩸, cutting. 📅 Saturday, 18 April 2026 🕰️ 2:45 - 4pm 📍 Segal Theater, CUNY Graduate Center Part of @queerclassrelations , hosted by @clagsny . Supported by @crgberkeley and @badasiansclub . The piece unfolded across five chapters between two altars. At the Sound Altar, each chapter opened with a foley action, looped and layered into reverberating accumulation. At the Blood Altar, conversations bent the form of the conference panel toward visceral abstraction as practice, strategy, and method. Service performed as acts of care-in-relation. Chapter 1: Zihan and Wu opened with a conversation about talent testing as Wu drew Zihan's 🩸. Chapter 2: Riven and Zihan recounted a rope performance at @folsomstreeteast two years prior, when Zihan fell off the riser and wounded himself, raising the question of what it means for the private to be made public. Chapter 3: Lena and Riven spoke over a bottle of dried 🩸flakes about unwaged reproductive labor while Riven shined Lena’s leather jacket. Chapter 4: Wu and Lena reflected on consent and exchangeable solids while Lena reopened a wound on Wu's back. Chapter 5: Riven and Wu closed with continuous debt, 关系, and the value circulating in domination and submission. Wu shined Riven's boots and drew Riven's 🩸 to be fired with the vessel, a performance object collecting the materials used throughout: 🩸, Huberd's shoe grease, and dried flakes. Excerpt from our abstract: "Marx wrote that capital enters the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” Our visceral methodology engaged this sanguine reality through ornamentalism, queer-class intimacies, and the viscerality of the value-form. How has blood been made to work? How do we make blood work?" 🩸 @lenachen 💉 @thebitchempress_ 🪢 @loozihan 🏍️ @transgressrrr 📸 1, 5 by @renal.artery 📸 8 by @laurawestengard 📸 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 by @tranced

🥢 Get ready to feast 🥢 Staged as a Chinese banquet, Five Flavors weaves firsthand stories from Asian American sex workers with a performance lecture on the history of Chinese American food, immigration exclusion, and labor. Each story is paired with a dish representing flavors from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): salty, sour, bitter, sweet, or pungent. 🥡 As dishes circulate, the lecture draws connections between Panda Express, cultural appropriation, feminism, fetishization, and racial violence. 🔪 Catered by Jess Wang of Gu Grocery, in collaboration with Felix Fang @felixfang217 , the potluck of stories represents Asian American womanhood through the metaphor of consumption and uses food to heal fears, anxieties, anger, and resentments. 🥠 Five Flavors was developed in collaboration with Private Practices, a collection on AAPI sex work and performance art housed at Los Angeles Contemporary Archive. 🏮 Sunday, May 3, 2026 🏮 Jianghu 2000 West Main Street Alhambra, CA 91801 Register at Link in Bio Registration does not guarantee entry. Food is first come, first served. Arrive early for best seat availability. Doors close once we reach full capacity. 6pm Doors Open with Community Organization Fair: @badasiansclub BAD ASIANS @ccedla Chinatown Community for Equitable Development @gu_grocery Gu Grocery @lacarchive Los Angeles Contemporary Archive @notyourrescueprojectbook Not Your Rescue Project @swopla Sex Workers Outreach Project @swopla_swans Sex Workers’ Abortion Navigation Services 6:30-7:30pm Performance 7:30-8:30pm DJ @aviloud & Community Organization Fair This project was commissioned by Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture @lacountyarts and developed and delivered by Dyson & Womack @dysonwomack . Five Flavors is made possible with additional support from the Lightning Fund, a re-granting program administered by LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions @welcometolace ) and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Part of the Being Human Festival (US), this project is one of 23 community events supported by National Humanities Center @natlhumanities . Graphic design by @olivialuk Film stills by @oddtresleches

Life lately: taking beach naps, enjoying outdoorsy moments with my tribe, hosting artist talks, reuniting with mentors, touching the wound, punching the rice, curating my biggest film program yet!, and consuming obscene amounts of toro in Honolulu. Not pictured: dog walks, school drop offs / pickups, going to Lagree, learning jiu jitsu - the routines that make everything else manageable.

Blood Work🩸 Asian American Congealment & Visceral Abstraction - a panel as performance 📅 Saturday, 18 April 2026 🕰️ 2:45 - 4pm 📍 Segal Theater, CUNY Graduate Center How has blood been made to work? How do we make blood work? How do artists navigate the tricky entanglement of desire, intimate labor, and capital through embodied practice? What happens when our imaginations of Asian American relational practices expand beyond gestures of care, sustenance, and provision to include wounding, withholding, and overpowering? This performance intervenes in the form of a conference panel to unpack racialized queer and economic relations. We examine how bodyworkers capitalize on (and are capitalized by) ornamentalism, a body both adorned and undone by blood’s viscosity. Through agonism and antagonism, we explore visceral abstraction as practice, strategy, and method. A relational understanding of thingliness enables us to glimpse forms of queer-class intimacies. We share our praxis through documentation and ritual actions to unpack our relationship to orientalism, objectification, and queer-class solidarity. part of @queerclassrelations hosted by @clagsny Register at 🔗 queerclassrelations.commons.gc.cuny.edu Supported by @crgberkeley & @badasiansclub 🩸@lenachen 💉@thebitchempress_ 🪢 @loozihan 🏍️ @transgressrrr 📷 @molly.baber

Take a look back at 🪩 The Night Shift 🪩 our symposium at USC on Queer Desire, Erotic Labor, & Radical Care After Dark. Full documentation here: https://bit.ly/nightshiftusc Huge thanks to our fabulous MC Tina Horn and to all our artists and presenters: Kim Ye, Keko Jackson, Lucas Hilderbrand, Kayla Tange, Stacy Macias, Summer Jade Leavitt, Jih-Fei Cheng, Zihan Loo, RJ Aguiar, Alisa Yang, Farrah, Kendall Ota, Maria Silk, and Laura Dudu 嘟嘟 with CAO Collective. This event was made possible by our partners: University of California Humanities Research Institute @uc_hri USC Department of American Studies & Ethnicity @aseusc USC Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies @usc_gss USC Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture @usc_consortium UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies @berkeleytdps BAD ASIANS @badasiansclub Organizing team: Lena Chen Aydin Quach Evan Sakuma [NAMI] Graphic design: @olivialuk Videography: @oddtresleches @yessi.dj

This International Women’s Day I’m excited to share that my film STARFIRE will be screening at @leedsqueerfilm festival on 21st March 🍷🩸 Made in collaboration with @lenachen , STARFIRE is a feminist retelling of the Eucharist, a matriarchal ritual rewriting patriarchal narratives to challenge institutional forces that have governed our bodies. Song made in collaboration with @__vveber__ Featuring @lenachen @rebeccatun @katinkagold @itsmarialessing 🩸Take back the power 🩸 #internationalwomensday #cinematography #videographer #filmdirector #shortfilm

Kick off the Year of the Fire Horse at Ancestral Dreamscapes, a screening program featuring Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese artists working across experimental, narrative, and embodied practices. Evoking diasporic longing while enacting queer world-making, this program positions the body and the motherland as sites of memory and transmutation, illuminating the wild, unruly, and imaginative possibilities of being Asian American today. Featuring work from: Andrew Ahn @andrewahnfilms Julian Doan @heyitsjulian Christine Yerie Lee @yeriesh Kang Seung Lee @kangseunglee Kayla Tange & Talon McKee @kayla.tange Jas Lin & Curry Tian @allthatjasss @curry_tian Emory Chao Johnson @emorychaojohnson Andrew Thomas Huang @andrewthomashuang C. Ryu @c.ryu_portal Helix Zhang @fruit.sutra Vendors: Asian Mental Health Project @asianmentalhealthproject Sam Oh Tarot @gayvirginofficial Sun Song @_sunsong_ from Hwa Records @hwarecords 🗓 Saturday, February 7, 2026 🕓 1:00–5:00 PM PT 📍Barnsdall Gallery Theatre 🔗 Free Admission (register at link in bio) + free matcha and milk tea for first 100 attendees (courtesy of @ProsperiTEA.sd ) Please note: -Registration does not guarantee tea or entry. Please arrive early for best seats. -Some material not suitable for all audiences. Parental guidance recommended. -"Pondeggi" features flashing imagery. -Due to unforeseen circumstances, Vander Von Odd can no longer participate in the program. Sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (Performing Arts Division) for the citywide fourth annual Lunar New Year Celebration. Graphic design by @olivialuk

The Year of the Fire Horse is ON 🐎🐎🐎 I’m psyched to announce that I am a recipient of a Lightning Fund Artist Grant from @welcometolace ! I’ll be using the grant to produce a full-scale version of Five Flavors, a performance lecture / immersive dinner I piloted last spring in NYC with @ahlfoundation . The project ties together Asian American histories of food, labor, and sex through the metaphor of consumption. Having returned to LA less than two years ago, this feels hugely affirming and I’m really grateful to get so much support for an artistic practice that largely avoids object-making. My work is almost entirely grant-funded, which isn’t without its drawbacks (precisely at a time of funding cuts), but I have somehow managed to do what is very difficult: make a career out of social practice and time-based art. So kudos to me, because 2016 Lena could NOT have imagined working on this scale! I’m thrilled to also share that this project will be realized in collaboration with the Private Practices collection at @lacarchive , which @kayla.tange , Hailey Loman, and I will be enriching with an AAPI sex worker oral history initiative. (And this is somehow also all related to my PhD research - if my dissertation chairs are reading this, I haven’t forgotten I’m still in school 😂). There are more partners and collaborators in the works but I will save that for another post ❤️ Congrats to all the awardees this year and thank you LACE!!!

Happy 2nd Wedding Anniversary @snakekittens !!! All these years later, I hope I still take your breath away and that you have NO REGRETS about making this deranged woman the mother of your children. Love you and the creatures we have nurtured together. Performance still from “Choke,” a 2019 performance collaboration recently published in the “On Breath” special issue of Performance Research, Volume 29, Issue 4-5 (2024). Thanks to @tsohilbhatia for documentation assistance and to the CMU MFAs who bore witness to our courtship. (Yes, we did this in a critique.)