廖倩 Liao Qian [leow chi-an]
Feed Projects

b. 1998 in Guangzhou, China
based in Brooklyn, New York, homeland of the Lenape.

I’m a polyphagous artist; I practice within and across multiple disciplines including visual art, dance, music and bilingual writing (with a poetic life of its own or to narrate my other creative works). Image making is my strength and investigating the powers of non-verbal communication is where my passion lands. Why talk if we can sing instead?

My english speaking friends call me Joss;)



photo taken by Morrison Gong in 2022


触发 Trigger
A series of multimedia works from
2015-2016

This is the portfolio I prepared for RISD’s early decision application in 2015. I was 17, knew very little about contemporary art, and my mentor back then, David Hu, guided me through the entire process. He was involved in conceptualization and critique, while I was responsible for visual execution. There were a lot of repressed sadness, anger and angst expressed in a teenager’s voice, unapolegetically emotional and urgently existential. Now I look back, I can see myself in these works but wouldn’t say they are an integrated representation of who I was/am. There were content that clearly did not belong to me: his taste and values influenced me significantly, and there was a decent amount of ego emeshment going on. I was dire for his approval. 

I remember going to the studio six days a week and working all day. I kept drinking beers and smoking cigarettes to calm my anxious drained body and keep it going. Day after day I went back home, felt exhausted and sad, and sat on bed for hours, just stared into the wall. Not do anything. I was physically and emotionally burnt out and had no idea how to deal with all those emotions that leashed out through the art making process which I had been suppressing all this time, the only way I knew. The thing that kept me going was Hu’s validation and encouragement, and my drive to seize the only escape from the asbusive household and depressing system I grew up in. RISD, art and him was the only exit I saw. 

This body of works were later exhibited in my high school gallery. It was my first solo show and I named it TRIGGER. Now I look back I realize how prophetic (一语成谶) it was: the meaning of trigger in the context of CPTSD, an instrumental part of my mental health experience. Full of triggers and living in compulsive hypervigilance non-stop was the reality I inhibited since 2016, when my mentor sexually assaulted me in his office. 

These works comfort and trigger me at the same time. I guess it’s because I’m not sure how to feel about myself back then, though I know I’m supposed to love and accept her. I remember being a sharp, sensitive and very difficult teenager and no one knew what to do with me, incluidng myself. I miss her though. I miss her a lot.