Chankalun (Karen Chan), Hong Kong / France
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Chankalun (Karen Chan) is an artist, educator, and researcher.
Born in Hong Kong, she lives and works between Paris and Hong Kong. Trained in BFA Set Design for Stage and Screen at the University of the Arts London (Wimbledon College of Arts) and in MFA Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design (New York / Paris), she later studied a CAP diploma on the craft of neon glass bending at the Lycée Dorian in Paris, becoming one of the few artists today who still hand-bend their own glass. Her transdisciplinary background — spanning craft, technology, and language — forms the foundation of a practice that bridges endangered know-how with contemporary creation. Her work explores how light, language, and gesture can make visible the invisible forces that shape perception — air, water, and underground energies. Neon, in her hands, becomes a living form of handwriting: a rhythm of heat, gravity, and human imperfection made visible in glass. Deeply influenced by the loss of Hong Kong’s once-vibrant neon streetscape, her practice began as an act of preservation and evolved into a poetic and philosophical inquiry into craft as cognition. Through hand-bent neon and installation, she reimagines this twentieth-century medium beyond its commercial origins, situating it within conversations on ecology, memory, and material intelligence. Her sculptures often translate natural phenomena — the flow of wind, the pulse of water, or the vibration of the earth — into light compositions that appear to breathe. She describes these works as “living scripts”, forms of writing that cannot be read but can be felt. |
Images courtesy of La Prairie
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At the heart of her practice lies the philosophy of “seeking perfection within imperfection.” Drawing from the cursive traditions of Chinese calligraphy, she embraces accident, rhythm, and raw emotion — while neon bending demands precision and bodily control. This tension between freedom and discipline, spontaneity and calculation, defines her approach. For Chankalun, imperfection is not failure but evidence of life: an honest record of the body’s negotiation with material.
Her ongoing research expands these ideas into a study of how making becomes thinking. She is currently developing doctoral research at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, investigating how the neuroscience of Chinese language learning and calligraphy reveals embodied forms of perception. Using generative AI text-to-image models such as GPT Image 1, she questions how humans and machines construct meaning — and what cognitive gestures remain uniquely human.
Her installations have been exhibited internationally, in New York, Paris, Brussels, Oxford, Pattaya, and Hong Kong, and presented at institutions and events including Art Basel Hong Kong, Milan Design Week, Tai Kwun, M+ Museum, and Braziers Park (UK). She was commissioned by La Prairie, UBS, and Diptyque, creating poetic dialogues between heritage and innovation.
Alongside her artistic practice, Chankalun teaches at Parsons Paris, where she leads studio courses on participatory art and design that explore empathy, observation, and the relationship between people and contemporary culture. Across her roles as artist, researcher, and educator, she strives to illuminate the beauty of imperfection and to keep the fragile flame of craftsmanship alive — in an age of light without hands.
Her ongoing research expands these ideas into a study of how making becomes thinking. She is currently developing doctoral research at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, investigating how the neuroscience of Chinese language learning and calligraphy reveals embodied forms of perception. Using generative AI text-to-image models such as GPT Image 1, she questions how humans and machines construct meaning — and what cognitive gestures remain uniquely human.
Her installations have been exhibited internationally, in New York, Paris, Brussels, Oxford, Pattaya, and Hong Kong, and presented at institutions and events including Art Basel Hong Kong, Milan Design Week, Tai Kwun, M+ Museum, and Braziers Park (UK). She was commissioned by La Prairie, UBS, and Diptyque, creating poetic dialogues between heritage and innovation.
Alongside her artistic practice, Chankalun teaches at Parsons Paris, where she leads studio courses on participatory art and design that explore empathy, observation, and the relationship between people and contemporary culture. Across her roles as artist, researcher, and educator, she strives to illuminate the beauty of imperfection and to keep the fragile flame of craftsmanship alive — in an age of light without hands.
Meet Chankalun at the Atelier 11 Open Studio event in February, 2026. More details TBA.
