Profile
 Colleen Chen, born on March 22, 2000, in Shanghai, China, is an interdisciplinary visual artist working with moving images, photography, game environments, and installation design. Through practices in visual storytelling and spatial experience, exploring how image, sound, and interactive media construct alternative ways of seeing and understanding everyday life. Works often draw on personal experience, employing observational and experimental approaches to reflect on the relationship between the individual and their environment.

Education
University of Auckland
Master of Fine Arts 
2025 - 2026

Employment
Remote Illustrator
UGLY (Shanghai) Advertising Co., Ltd. 
2024 - 2025

Primary Art Teacher
The Wonder Centre
2023
Skills
Narrative Development
Visual Storytelling
Graphic Design
Typography
2D Animation
Video Editing
Game Development (Unity, Blender)
Installation Art
Documentary Photography

Exhibitions
MADE IN A DAY
Silo 6
Auckland
2025

ELAM Graduation Show
Elam School of Fine Arts
Auckland
2025



Colleen  ChenArt Portfolio Work Collections 2019-2025 Email: wuyuflower@126.com

Project 01

Soundscape Installation Theatre: The Forest
(2025 - present)


This project explores narrative possibilities in new media art and the relationship between audiences and interactive storytelling.

The works span writing, moving-image, sound installation, and game development, transforming a fictional narrative into an immersive spatial experience.

In the exhibition, the gameplay recording was displayed on a 14-inch CRT television with headphones for an individual audio experience. Two speakers mounted on the exhibition wall continuously played an AI-generated male voice narrating the story from a first-person perspective.

Lorem Ipsum...
Lorem Ipsum...

Produced with: Unity,  Blender, Adobe Photoshop


Narrative Text I: City and Forest

 A suffocating pain rises in his chest, forcing him to grip his collar. As he collapses onto the cold, rough ground from a sudden wave of intense dizziness, the hard sensation in his palm stirs memories of the past.



When he left home, he didn’t bring many things,just a bag of clothes and a necklace he had received from an elder in his family. The pendant was wooden, carried the scent of the tree it had once been. He remembered the elder who had given him this necklace once telling him a story,a tale from ancient times about towering trees that once reached toward the heavens, connecting earth and sky, bridging mortals and gods. He wondered,did the gods live atop those trees? So he found the tallest tree he could and climbed to the top but saw no trace of any gods.



The dry wind carried with it the roar of machinery, the dust, and the rusty scent of exposed steel bars from the skeletal frames of unfinished buildings, scattering the lingering traces of nature’s breath. The city’s skyscrapers stood at heights even the tallest trees could never rival. If one spoke of touching the heavens, he thought these urban colossi surely surpassed the old legends. Yet even up there, the traces of gods remained elusive.



However, the work at hand and the next meal mattered far more than gods to him now. Survival left no room for the myth from childhood. And when, after long hours of labour, he walked into the bustling crowds on the streets, sometimes felt as though an unknown force was propelling him forward,even with exhaustion weighing on his body, his legs still moved to a rhythm that seemed beyond his own will. It was in moments like these that he couldn’t help but wonder if there really was some invisible presence above the sky,observing his every step, manipulating him like a plaything, bearing down on him until his breath grew thinner and thinner?



In this city, he once met a traveler. The traveler said he was born and raised in another city, until one day he decided to see a different side of the world and left his home. From urban jungles to rural fields, then beyond, across ridges and open plains. Finally, when his journey ended and he returned home, he desperately found that the city was no longer the one in his memory. Everything had changed; nothing and no one remained as it once was. So he set out again, wandering from city to city, yet none could become his home. And so his footsteps never ceased.



"City is devouring people and their memories." Before setting off, the traveler said this: his next destination was a wilderness untouched by any city. Perhaps there, he might finally find a place to anchor his wandering soul.



The idea had seemed preposterous to him at the time - city being no living beast to gorge on human flesh. Yet what he'd shrugged off as nonsense ramblings now clung to him like a spectre's breath, whispering at the edges of his hearing.



The night sky reflects a murky neon crimson, and to him who is lying on the ground now, the surrounding buildings loom even more vertiginously, tilting as if to collapse upon him - like the closing maw of some living leviathan. Is the city truly devouring him? How can that be? These steel-and-concrete structures were the very antithesis of life itself. Yet, the large number of buildings blots out the sky, forming an endless, forest-like landscape. A inescapable labyrinth.



In his dazed state, time seems to accelerate at an unnatural pace, as if someone has pressed fast-forward. He feels his body being gradually digested and dissolved - first breaking into countless fleshy fragments, then finally melting into a pool of blood that seeped into the ground, merging with the bricks and mortar of the city walls. His once-human flesh will become nutrients sustaining the monstrous entity called 'the city,' fueling its growth until he has provided every last calorie of heat, vanishing completely from this world.



Simultaneously, amidst despair and agony, the last piece of his consciousness is carried away by the woody fragrance from a fallen pendant beside his face - back to that forest in his memory. There, he remains his pure self, still believes that one day he will find that giant tree where gods rested, climb to its crown, and speak face-to-face with those gods about the vistas he'd seen from rooftops higher than any tree in that other version of the world. Now lying on the leaf-strewn ground, he let insects scurry through the foliage beneath his weary body. The dappled sunlight filtering through the interlaced branches carries the warmth of a mother's embrace, while the chorus of chirping insects and rustling leaves composes nature's lullaby, granting him his long, long repose.



叙事 I：城市与森林
当他因一阵突如其来的强烈眩晕而躺倒在冰冷粗糙的地面上时，脑中浮现的是那片充满了泥土气息与虫鸣声的树林的样子。

胸腔传来的闷痛让他不由得紧揪着衣领，掌心之中的坚硬触感唤醒了他过往的记忆。在离家时他并没有带上太多东西，只有装着衣物的行李还有一串项链。项链的吊坠是木制的，散发着一股当它原本还是一颗树时的气味。他从家里的老人那儿得到这条项链时，听她说古时有参天的巨树可以连接天地、沟通人神。他想那神仙难道就住在树顶上？他便找了那棵最高的树爬到最顶，却没瞧见什么神仙的影子。

干燥的风将机器轰鸣声连带着尘土与未建成的楼房骨架间裸露钢筋的铁锈味一起裹挟而来，把来自自然的气息冲散。城市的高楼有着即使最高的树也无法比拟的高度，要论通天的能力他觉得还是城市里的高楼更胜一筹，可即使处在最接近天空的高度，也难以找到神仙的踪迹。其实比起神不神仙的，还是手头的活儿和明天的晚餐对现在的他来说更要紧，为了在生活的竞赛中获胜他已无心顾及那些儿时信以为真的古老传说。而当他结束长时间的劳作汇入街上熙攘的人流中，有时会感觉自己正在被一股力量推动着前行，即使身体疲惫不堪双腿也依旧遵循着某种不属于自身意志的频率进行摆动。每到这种时刻反倒让他觉得可能真的有某种东西在举头三尺之处注视着他，压迫的他喘不过气来。

他在这座城曾遇到过一个旅人。那旅人说自己在另一座城市中出生、长大，并在某一天决定去见识世界的另一种模样。从城市到乡田，再到山川与平原。当他结束自己的旅途准备归家之时，却发现那座城已不是记忆里的城，一切早已物是人非。他只得重新踏上旅途，从一座城到另一座城，但没有一处能成为他的归属，他的脚步也一直未曾停歇。

“城市是会吃人的。”那旅人在动身离开前如此说道，他的下一个目的地是不属于任何城市的荒原，他说或许在那儿能够寻得让漂泊的灵魂得以安置的地方。

说城市会吃人他当然是不信的，城市又不是什么野兽能活过来把人吞掉。他也就权当是一番胡言乱语，没过多久便将其忘却，可如今那句话却像鬼魅般萦绕于他的耳边挥之不去。

夜晚的天空反射出源自霓虹灯的暗红色，对于躺倒在地面的他而言周围的楼房变得更加高耸入云，好像正朝他倾倒，将他压迫，如同一个活生生的正在闭合的巨口。城市真的在吞噬自己，怎么会呢？由钢筋水泥浇筑而成的城市是离“生命”这一概念最远的东西。然而那些林立的高楼却像是一片无边无际的森林，将天空都遮蔽，形成了一个无法逃离的迷宫。

在恍惚中，时间犹如按下快速播放键般以无视自然法则的速度飞速流逝，他感觉到自己的身体好像正在被一点一点地消化融解，从被分解为无数的肉块，到最后成为一滩血水，渗入地面之下，融入楼房墙体内的一砖一瓦。他曾经作为人类的肉体将成为名为“城市”的怪兽维持活动机能的养分，让它的肉体能够继续茁壮成长，直至为它提供完最后一丝热量后彻底从世界上消失。

与此同时，在绝望与痛苦中，他的最后一丝意识被掉落于脸旁的坠饰所散发的木头香气带回到了记忆中的那片树林，在那里他还维持着儿时的样子，无忧无虑地肆意玩耍嬉戏，不被任何身外之物所侵扰。他相信终有一天他会找到那颗有神仙歇息的大树，爬到树顶，和那些神仙面对面地聊聊自己在另一种模样的世界中在比树还高的房子顶上看到的风景。他躺在落叶铺洒的地面，任由昆虫在他玩耍过后疲惫的身躯下的落叶堆中穿行，枝干交缠的间隙间洒下的点点阳光有着犹如母亲怀抱般的温暖，虫鸣声与树叶窸窣声奏响着自然的咏叹调，给予他漫长的安眠。


Gameplay Recording


Exhibition Record


Project Webpage


小红书


小红书
Top Work Collections 2019-2025