Scaling (Man on the Run)

Artist’s Statement:

My interdisciplinary practice engages with the intersectionality of the body and the environment, both physical and conceptual, to examine, reflect, and experiment on how identities and relationships are (de)constructed. For the research and creative process, I employ the body as a unit of measurement, a sensor of reception, a dissector of experience, and the instrument for creativity.

In the work, Scaling (Man on the Run), I want to discuss how the body relates to the natural environment and how the humanity is measured in the context of the land. Through the movement of running, I want to utilize the body and its physicality as the unit in the scale of the up-north wilderness – the Yukon River, the sand band, and the storm – trying to locate where the body situate on the spatial and temporal landscape, which is the principle to reconnect and renegotiate the body-land relationship.

About the Artist:

Sidi Chen is a traveling queer artist whose practice addresses the intersectionality of the body, community space, and the land. Through his interdisciplinary research, Chen’s interested in how the physical and cultural environments reflect and (de)construct the humanities. Through his practice, Chen is passionate about utilizing arts for community research, relationship building, and action development.

Chen graduated from the University of the Fraser Valley with BFA with the honor of distinction in 2018, and has participated in a wide range of residencies, exhibitions, performances, and projects in North America. Sidi Chen is currently residing and working as a practicing artist, an independent arts administrator, and a community worker in the historical Chinatown, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməəθkwəəy̓əəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səəl̓íílwəətaʔʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations, known as Vancouver, BC.