Lena Chen

Feminist Artist 👠 UC Berkeley PhD candidate studying sex work, performance art, & Asian womanhood 🥡 Director, The Last Mayor of Chinatown 🐯 Tiger MILF

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Proud to make the cover of @PGHCityPaper and to be part of the beautiful legacy of sex worker organizing in Pittsburgh ❤️ Thank you to @PghSWOP @sapiotextual @adrierising @pjrey and all those who’ve been doing the work long before me!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Presented on Asian American BDSM and artist archives for the Association for Asian American Studies conference in Boston!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Psyched to virtually present my documentary “The Last Mayor of Chinatown” today at my alma mater for @English_CMU Bridges & Borders conference on the theme of the archive. My subject Shirley Yee is retiring from CMU this year so it feels very full circle! https://t.co/kFmRulwFYO

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@MaxineHolloway How do I break it to my son that acab 😭

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Speaking on this roundtable at @AmerStudiesAssn #ASA2024 on artistic programming in the academy aka how to support artists I love with institutional funds while avoiding tokenization (and often failing)

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Outfit check from day 2 of @AmerStudiesAssn in Baltimore. My Lyft driver gave me recs for crab cakes and strip clubs 🦀

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@TheBitchEmpress Iconic

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

I have a co-authored chapter with @kass_sparks_on sex worker gift economies and mutual aid in this edited volume on sex work ✨ Get a free copy when it comes out next month with NYU Press. Edited by @barbbrents Bernadette Barton & @drjonessoc.

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Presenting in-progress research next week for this virtual series at University of Toronto! I’ll discuss representations of Asian sex workers, the artistic activism of @RedCanarySong, and the founding of JADED Pittsburgh after the 2021 Atlanta shootings https://t.co/8DTOqCPWQm

[ISSI @UCBerkeleyISSI]

Lena Chen, AARC graduate student affiliate, has won three awards for her film, "The Last Mayor of Chinatown," which tells the story of the rise, decline, & rediscovery of Pittsburgh’s Chinatown. @lenachen https://t.co/hrQQOHMLyE

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

My documentary on Yuen Yee, the last honorary mayor of Pittsburgh’s Chinatown, is screening across the Midwest this fall ❤️ Catch the film in-person in Ohio and Minneapolis or online during @VAFFvancouver 🎥 We hope to complete a Chinese translation by the end of the year!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

The Singaporean performance artist and @BerkeleyTDPS PhD student Zihan Loo will be sharing thoughts on Ye’s work.

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Kim Ye will be sharing an exclusive look at her latest video work “Mother Fucker,” created as part of her @stanfordccsre Mellon Arts Fellowship!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

A huge thanks to @15FilmFest for the recognition and offering a platform to the story of the Yee family and Pittsburgh’s Chinatown!

[15FilmFest @15FilmFest]

Congratulations to "The Last Mayor of Chinatown" for earning the First Place award in this year's Fifteen Minute Film Festival!

Directed by Lena Chen, the film tells the story of the rise, decline, and rediscovery of Pittsburgh’s Chinatown.

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@raquelita You’ve been such a trailblazer and dedicated to platforming others’ work for so long! Yes, through publishing but also through hosting events and being a general cheerleader for folks ❤️

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@raquelita @cleispress Congrats Rachel!!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@laurenleemack Yay congrats @laurenleemack!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

[insert lit review]

[Catherine D. Tan @Catherineoscopy]

When you draft a paper, does it look like a Mad Libs no one wants to do? A bunch of [X], [another word for cultivate], [example], [citation here], [transition].

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

@cellllla @uhleeeeeeeshuh @xjasminelu @XRDS_ACM Congrats on this!!!

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Filmed on a day when the museum was closed to the public, the project was originally commissioned by We Have Always Been Here, an exhibition at the Schwules Museum.

We’ll be showing at 9am on Saturday June 29 in the Weird Sexy Shorts block of Feminist Border Arts Film Festival.

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

Thrilled to announce that Mother of Whores - a video performance at the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum - is debuting at the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival this Saturday, June 29th at New Mexico State University!

https://t.co/mVDuiGpEls

See thread for details:

[Lena Chen @lenachen]

as a powerful feminine figure and the marginalization of her queer and sex worker consorts. The ritual features a procession through the museum halls, offerings of music and dance to the goddess, and the planting of a succulent known as the “Mother of Thousands.”