Si Chen

Si Chen is an artist who works between London, Toronto and Beijing. She graduated from Ontario College of Art and Design University in Canada and is currently studying Jewellery & Metal at the Royal College of Art in the UK.

Si Chen's work explores the underlying logic of people's behaviour and the embodiment of human nature in contemporary society. She believes in the commonality of people and uses herself as an observational sample in a secular society, looking at herself from a third-person perspective.

Her installations are primarily participative and experimental, and she believes that the narrative of the work can be completed only by incorporating the audience's behaviour as material into the artwork. She argues that in an age saturated by visual noise, only artworks that affect the viewer experientially can evoke people's emotions and senses, provoking more profound thoughts and resonance.

Si Chen's installation The Minkbel Prize aims to expose the hidden problems caused by the narrowness of the social system of evaluation. The work is presented as a participative group performance - inviting the audience to participate, giving them real experiences and leading them to reflect on the social order constructed by symbols.

Si Chen transforms the lottery into a metaphor for the randomness of individual genetics and environmental factors. At the same time, the medal symbolises the highest standard of judgement awarded to an individual in a secular society. In this micro-utopia, she projects the way human status is evaluated in a hierarchy onto a virtual prize - The Minkbel Prize - and uses its absurd judging method to disrupt the criteria of meritocratic reward mechanisms, thereby reorganising the social relations between participants.

Si Chen's work asks participants to reflect on the ad hoc relationships presented in her work and prompts a questioning of society's power structures.