B.A. in Sociology, Harvard University; M.F.A. in Art, Carnegie Mellon University
Lena Chen is an artist and Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. Her scholarship proposes a theory of Asian American womanhood through uniting narratives of the sex worker and the Tiger Mother. Awarded grants from Mozilla Foundation, Sundance Institute, and the Center for Cultural Power, she is currently hosting community workshops on AAPI sexuality and devising a collective performance as part of her practice-based research.
Her work appears in the edited volumes Curating as Feminist Organizing (Routledge, 2022), Sex Work Now (NYU Press, forthcoming), and To Be Named (Routledge, forthcoming). She has taught classes on feminist theory, ethics and technology, and socially engaged art. Additional interests include feminist performance art, sex work and surveillance, and digital persona.