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Christy Chan

She // Her // Hers

Visual Artist and Filmmaker

Richmond, CA

Christy, a Chinese-American woman with wavy, shoulder-length black hair looks towards left of camera. She is in front of a blurred outdoor landscape.

Photo by Bethany Herron.

Christy Chan is a visual artist, film director, and community organizer. Using a combination of video, installation, performance, object-design, guerrilla projection, and social practice, Chan's projects are often participatory, city-wide platforms that aim to draw citizens from under-represented communities together to speak their truths. Past projects include Fainting Couch (2022), Dear America (2021), Everybody Eats Lunch (2019), Inside Out (2019), and I Still Live Here (2017).

In 2021, following the censorship of her work for critiquing a US president, Chan evolved her practice to bypass traditional municipal and institutional processes and founded Dear America, a guerrilla public art project that projects the artworks of AAPI artists onto highrise buildings in urban areas in response to anti-Asian racism.

Chan’s work has been exhibited throughout the US at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Mills College Art Museum, and Southern Exposure in the San Francisco Bay Area; Wassaic Project x NY Council of the Arts in New York; Film Independent in Los Angeles; Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha; and on NPR, among other cultural institutions. Born and raised in Virginia, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, and California Arts Council Fellowship. She has been active in the Bay Area art and film community for twentyfive years and serves as a board member at Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Chan lives in Richmond, California.

Donor -The Rainin Arts Fellowship is supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 04.23.2025

Interdisciplinary
Four people in winter clothes hover around media equipment on a city sidewalk at night, beaming pink light at a cathedral. A large glowing, pink image with "Asian America is America" in white letters appears over the stone walls of the cathedral, covering it from end to end. The cathedral has trees on both sides, and two dozen stone steps leading to its doors.

Installation of Dear America by Christy Chan, 2021. Projection, 45 × 35 × 1/2 feet. Presented by Dear America and installed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Community partners include Stand With Asian Americans, Mills College Art Museum, Grace Cathedral, and For Freedoms.

Photo by Kristiana Chan.

A small crowd of people is gathered beneath a tall brick building at night, holding cell phones up to take pictures. On the four story brick building is projected the words. "Nosotros immigrantes, no somos delinquentes."

Inside Out by Christy Chan, 2019. Public art installation, 50 × 40 feet. Partnering organizations and community partners include the City of Richmond, NIAD Art Center, Richmond Art Center, Ryse Youth Center, and Richmond Streets.

Photo by Ellen Gailing.

Three people stand in front a blue sky with early morning sunlight, hovering over film equipment. Christy, a woman wearing a baseball hat, looks at at a monitor while Mario, a man with curly hair, leans over a camera. Orlando, a man with a hat, is partially visible behind them.

Christy Chan and collaborators on set, 2023.

Photo by Katie Sugarman.