Jon Chen is a multidisciplinary artist from San Diego who’s spent a chunk of this year working on a piece based in their Chinese heritage and culture, that also explores digital and physical realities, sound, and imagining the future. “As someone who grew up in San Diego and has been dreaming ab out an opportunity to work as an Asian American artist within the context of being San Diegan, I just found (the AAPI Emerging Artist Fellowship) and ended up applying,” they said. “The prompt for this year, about ancient futures, was something that I felt really aligned with my artistic practice, both viewing technology as this means of openness, and also the potentiality of what technology can align us toward, but also grounding itself in ancient and traditional practices.” Viet Voices’ AAPI Emerging Artist Fellowship is a program run by artists for Asian American and Pacific Islander artists who are early in their careers, providing mentorship, workshops, networking, discussions, a $3,000 stipend, and a culminating exhibition, “PROPHECY: Joy Futurism In A World Renewing.” This exhibition, which continues through Friday at The Front in San Ysidro, features the work of the artists who are part of the 2025 fall/winter cycle—Chen, Sebastian Loo, Rino Kodama, and Jenn Ban. Chen, 26, lives in Golden Hill and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design where they majored in sculpture. Their work ranges from ceramics to code-based work, as well as print and digital storytelling. They took some time to talk about their art practice and their experience working with other AAPI artists. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.) Q: How did you get started as an artist? A: Ever since I was really young, I’ve always been really interested in coming up with imaginary worlds. I’ve always been very playful in how I’ve expressed myself, like through creating these intricate, paper worlds by cutting up paper and making castles, or these long maps. I think those are kind of the origin points of this playful creation and tinkering as a child. From there, I was really fortunate to have the ability to explore different disciplines, whether through apparel, drawing, design—I just bounced around through all my interests. As I was deciding between design or arts for a career, I thought, why not just try to approach both? I found the Rhode Island School of Design and was just really captivated by their centering around this very playful spirit of creating, and I ended up just exploring even more different disciplines and gravitating toward sculpture because of its open-endedness. It allowed me to explore all my interests in a very free way. Q: What appealed to you about the fellowship? A: As someone who is in San Diegan and wanted to help cultivate this place further and bring in all these experiences I’ve had, having this like artist residency has been this really magical experience providing me the time, space, and bandwidth to continue exploring these ideas. To me, it’s like, what does it mean to collectively make (art) together and imagine these futures because I think we’re in this place in the world where there’s so much going on. At the same time, we’re needing to reach further into the future, while also listening to the present, and grounding ourselves in the ways that we’ve gone through really difficult phases in like life as a civilization or a society, together. I think, through this residency, that has been this continuous context that I keep on revisiting. I really like this like perspective that everything that you express is art. Sometimes, it can be difficult to realize an idea, but actually producing art allows you to kind of fully embody and embrace the most cathartic, or authentic, way of moving through the world. Q: You’ve mentioned being an Asian American artist in the context of being from San Diego; what does this mean for you? A: As a queer, Chinese American, growing up in San Diego, for me, has been grounded in many ways by my family’s experiences. My parents being Chinese immigrants, and even simple things, like going to Convoy. These are places that you don’t necessarily think about in the moment, as you’re growing up, as to what is meaningful or what matters. As I’ve grown older and reflected on these experiences, and even the culture and what it meant to be growing up in a place like San Diego, there’s this realization that not only is it your narrative, but it’s actually the collective narrative of the community members who are Asian American, Pacific Islander. Together, we can dictate and express what these narratives should or could be. I think it goes back to stepping into radical dreaming or radical imagination; a lot of it is how we’re viewing these meaningful experiences, whether it’s having hot pot, or Korean barbecue. A lot of it is centered around food, as well the friendships that are informed in our jokes and the ways that like we connect to each other through video games or the music that we listen to. It’s a fascinating thing because I think it’s important to research  and learn more about the history of the lineages that came before you in a place, but then you’re also then recognizing that you are creating that history in community. Beyond that, I think what’s been really expansive is then seeking out and meeting people who grew up in a different part of San Diego, and that allowing you to create a more encompassing and expansive set of stories, and what it means to be Asian American in like a place like San Diego. I feel very excited that that’s something that can be further cultivated and further documented just by simply like existing here and supporting the artistic culture. Q: Can you talk about the work you’ve contributed to the “PROPHECY” exhibition? A: Yeah, my art piece is centered mainly around one object. There is this mythological creature in Chinese culture called Bixi, and it’s this dragon turtle that is the descendant of the Dragon King, a cosmological myth within Chinese culture. In a very individualistic way, one of my favorite animals is the turtle. Growing up, that’s like something that people knew about me. As I was retracing my own cultural lineage of being Chinese, I found that mythology was a very natural pathway, so I ended up starting to study different mythological creatures and stories. Also at that time, I was thinking about the axis mundi, or the navel of the world—what does it mean? The world tree at the center of the Earth, all these perspectives and the cosmos, telling creation stories that speak to our comprehension of like reality. I wanted to kind of reground and have Bixi be the vehicle to allow us to find clarity and hope in this time of renewing. From there, I’ve been sculpting this turtle, and another core component of this mythological creature is that there’s a huge, carved plaque that sits on top of this stone turtle. My dream was to merge what it means to have this physical reality of experiences, and also this digital reality that we are all kind of experiencing in the same way. I’m talking to you right now from my iPhone, and that’s a very magical and almost absurd thing that we do as humans now. If you think about the creation of something like the telephone, this art piece is like a provocation of asking what does it mean to create a world? Or, even imagine a world where it’s rooted in much more respect to Earth and a reverence. The piece has this digital monitor on top that will run this simulated landscape of audio of the ocean, or the clouds, or animals. It’s like a sound ecosystem where, as the viewers, you’re listening and hearing what I hope is the magic of technology and the physical. The spirit of Bixi is meant to ask what it means to create stories and myths. Q: In some of the material describing this showing, there are questions about who gets to decide what is worth saving in a world that is renewing itself, what’s possible when the future informs the past instead of the past determining what happens next, and what kind of hope can come out of the activism of collective joy? Are there any experiences from the course of this fellowship that have helped you consider what you find worthy of saving for the future? A: For me, it’s community. It’s a really special thing being surrounded by amazing queer, Asian American artists. There’s a level of community that underpins it that also has been stewarded by hamsa (fae, artist and director of the fellowship), as well as Viet Voices. On a personal level, I find that through the narratives and conversations with other people that it really feels like we’re in this place of unknowing and uncertainty. That said, I think something that I’m returning to through this residency is the heart as a place of a home and a place of sanctitude and belonging. No matter what, if we move into this future of this unknowing, and this present state of unknowing, and we can remember and find ways to both grieve and celebrate with joy, that is how we are able to get through and collectively dream. This residency has given me this opportunity to dream with others, as well as experience play. We are learning and we’re having to find the ways to still play and experience joy, and also process grief because that is how we are able to hold on to a power that allows us to steward something, hopefully, more beautiful.   ...read more read less