Our Newest Artist-In-Residence, Wen-hao Tien

We’re proud to announce the selection of our new 2020 Artist-In-Residence, Wen-hao Tien.

Photo Credit: Jaclyn Poeschl

Tien is a Cambridge-based visual artist and educator. She grew up in Taiwan with family roots in Shandong Province, China. She moved to the United States to pursue her graduate studies in Asian studies and visual arts.

As a first-generation immigrant, Tien has a persistent feeling of being “out of place,” even after living in the United States for thirty years. When she returns to Taiwan, she feels a similar sense of disconnection in the fast-changing society there. Her work is motivated by exploring a fluid identity and looking for the connective vocabulary of nomads.

She engages in practices that are research-based, moving away from specific media to process art, installation, and digital video montage. These new ways of thinking have amplified her public voice and challenged her viewers to tolerate some discomfort.

Photo Credit: Wen-hao Tien

While in residency at the Pao Arts Center, Tien will observe Boston's Chinatown and participate in its community. She feels an urgency to interpret the shifting cultural landscape of the Chinatown neighborhood since she first encountered it in the 1990s. Tien will synthesize the sights of the new and the old, as well as create a linguistic soundscape that captures the nuances and textures of a place and a people in transition.

“This residency is happening at a magical time after completing my intermedia work Weed Out, using foraged living materials to investigate migration and belonging,” said Tien. “Now, I want to further understand the diverse and complexity of Asian American identities.”