Wen-hao Tien is the Pao Art Center's Artist in Residence 2020

Unveiling Boston Chinatown

Wen-hao Tien is a Cambridge-based visual artist and educator. Wen-hao grew up in Taiwan, with family roots in Shandong Province, China. She moved to the United States in 1988 to pursue her graduate studies and ultimately became a naturalized citizen.

Early in her career, Wen-hao exhibited contemporary Chinese calligraphy and multi-media paintings. In recent years, she finds herself leaving the studio to forage for materials and stories on community streets - which brought her to Boston Chinatown. She feels an urgency to interpret the shifting Chinatown cultural landscape, which has changed radically since she first encountered it in the 1990s. 

While in residency at BCNC Pao Arts Center, Wen-hao will draw upon visual and audio inspirations from the Chinatown community to capture the nuances and textures of a place and people in transition. She will also host workshops to engage in an exploration of a diverse and complex local diaspora and Asian American culture, past/present/future. Follow Wen-hao’s residency on this blog.