Christy Chan
I grew up in the bustle of a Chinese restaurant run by my family members and saw firsthand how food creates physical and emotional space for people to connect. Guards come down, distances can sometimes be shortened…or not. My family believed that when a table welcomes a person in their entirety, that person can also show up in their entirety. --Christy Chan
In a 2017- 2019 post-election climate when conversations between strangers could feel difficult, Christy Chan’s Everybody Eats Lunch project paired Americans together for one-on-one meals and conversations, with culinary experiences and spaces donated by local restaurants. The intention of the project was to bring people together based on an intentionally simple algorithm: food. Programs took place in Omaha, Nebraska and Berkeley, California, where the project served as an analog experiment in the backyard of the birthplace of social media and digital conversation. The installation and its individual works are inspired by conversations between Berkeley residents.
Christy Chan is an interdisciplinary artist working across video, installation, object design, social practice, community engagement and public art interventions. She was a 2022 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Art, a 2024 Creative Capital Awardee and the founder of Dear America, a guerrilla public art project that projected the art works of Asian-American artists on to high-rise buildings throughout the Bay Area in response to an epidemic of anti-Asian violence. Chan’s work has been featured in exhibitions and programs throughout the United States. She has been awarded residencies and support from Santa Fe Art Institute, Montalvo Arts Center, California Arts Council, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley Film Foundation, SFFILM House and other institutions. Her art and activism work has been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and other publications. Originally from Virginia, Chan lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Christy Chan, Everybody Eats Lunch, film still video, Courtesy of the Artist