PSA’s Emerging Curator Shen Chen Takes Research Trip in Switzerland

Since its inception in 2014, the Power Station of Art’s Emerging Curators Project (ECP) is committed to empowering China’s young curatorial and art forces with a fertile land of growth. Marking the beginning of this new collaboration, Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council will support a one-month research trip for one candidate — Shen Chen, out of the two winning teams to Switzerland.

Under the guidance of a coach, Shen is expected to visit related art institutions, curators, and artists, with the purpose of engaging in dialogues with the Swiss art scene. He will investigate the themes about art and nature, politics and memory, mythology and poetics, and how these things are intertwined, repeatedly reconstructed with each other. He will also explore the complexity of composite truth/fallacy might unfold different perspectives, for understanding ourselves and the underlying structures, and sneak peek into the unexpected future. 

Shen Chen

Born and raised in China, Chen Shen is currently a curator of  White Space Beijing. He used to be the curator of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, and nominator for Jimei × Arles Discovery Award, Aibgail Cohen Fund, Kassel Fotobook Festival Best Photobook. He holds an MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan; an M. Sc. in New Media from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; and a B.A. in International Politics from Peking University, Beijing.

His curated and organized exhibitions include “The 7th – 10th Three Shadows Photography Award Exhibition”(2015-2018), “On Methods – Solo Exhibition by Candida Höfer”(2015), “Chinese Photography: Twentieth Century and Beyond”(2015), “Scripts of the Bodies”(2016), “Kassel Fotobook Festival & Editions Bessard | Beijing”(2016), “Les meta-clichés de Valérie Belin”(2017), “40 Years of Chinese Contemporary Photography ”, “Phantom Pain Clinic”(2017),  “Ten Directions: The 10th Anniversary of the Three Shadows Photography Award”, “A White Space Odyssey”(2019), etc. The project “Sunset on a Dead End – The Notorious and Their Inexplicable Modes of Existence” won the 2019 Emerging Curators Project of Power Station of Art.

Emerging Curators Project (ECP)

PSA’s Emerging Curators Project is China’s exclusive young curator development and research project. As the contemporary art museum’s annual exhibitory and academic trademark, the project stays committed to exploring young Chinese curatorial talents and providing them with a platform to practice conceptions, an opportunity to access comprehensive and in-depth guidance, a path to enter the public’s eyes, and an environment to enjoy healthy growth. Since its inception in 2014, the Emerging Curators Project has so far supported more than 30 Chinese curatorial talents to realize a total of 14 exhibitions.

(Banner image from installation view of Emerging Curators Project 2019, Sunset on a Dead End: The Notorious and Their Inexplicable Modes of Existence, curated by Shen Chen and Wang Huan, at Power Station of Art, Shanghai.)