Christy Chan is an artist and filmmaker working across video, performance, installation, narrative film, object design, community engagement and public art. Informed by her early years in the rural South, her work uses both minimalism and tragic-comedy to deconstruct and question the social codes and everyday power structures that normalize racialized violence in the United States.

A recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2024 Creative Capital Award, and a 2025 Kenneth Rainin Foundation Fellowship, Chan’s work has been presented throughout the U.S. and Europe, including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Mills Art Museum and ICA SF in the Bay Area; Film Independent and New Filmmakers in Los Angeles; Interfilm-Kuki and Dresden International Film Festivals in Germany; Asia Art Archive of America and New York Arts Foundation in New York; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Utah; and other institutions.

She has been awarded residencies and participated in studio programs at Yaddo, Montalvo Art Center, SFFILM House, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Hermitage Artist Retreat and others. Chan's practice has been profiled by The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Hyperallergic, and BOMB Magazine. She is a frequent guest lecturer at academic and cultural institutions. Her independent film, Somewhere To Be, created with Bay Area-based crew and talent, is screening theatrically at over twenty film festivals internationally throughout 2026. She is based in Richmond, California.

CV Artist Statement Follow on Instagram