Chen Yiyun is currently based in Shanghai. She graduated with an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art (London, UK) and obtained a BA in Digital Media Design at Tongji University (Shanghai, China). She also holds a diploma in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Using the language of speculative critical design, her multi-media practice probes the relationship between men and their bodies, and the interrelation between emerging technologies and everyday lives. She currently shows an interest in the realms where arts and life science intersect and is concerned with human bodies in health and sickness, illness behaviours and how social-cultural factors affect body attitudes.
Her recent exhibitions include Passage of Sinthome at Art Sanya, Sanya (2019), ReShape-Mutating Systems, Bodies and Perspectives at MU Art Space, Eindhoven (2018), PERFECTION at Science Gallery, Melbourne (2018), Meta and Speculation at the Digital Art Center, Taipei (2018) and The Ballad of Generation Y at OCAT, Shanghai (2015). In 2018, Chen Yiyun won the Bio-Art & Design Award, The Hague. She worked as a visiting researcher at the SymbioticA, University of West Australia (2016) and the Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences at the Maastricht University (2018). Chen has been serving as an assistant professor at the College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University since 2020.