Sammy Chien 簡上翔 is a Taiwanese-Canadian immigrant and queer artist-of-colour, who’s a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary artist, director, performer, researcher and mentor in film, sound art, new media, performance, movement and spiritual practice. With over 500 collaborative projects, his work has been exhibited across Canada, Western Europe, and Asia including Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), worked with pioneers of digital performance: Troika Ranch and Wong Kar Wai’s Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and active in projects engaging various underrepresented communities. Sammy has been featured on magazines, TV and commercials such as Discorder, Keedan, CBC Arts and BenQ. Sammy is currently co-leading dance projects “We Were One” & “Inner Sublimity” and media arts project “Ritual-Spective 迴融” & “Soul Speaking”, funded by Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. Sammy is the official instructor of Isadora, Member/Council of MotionDAO, Co-Artistic Director of Third Space Arts Collective and Artistic Director of Chimerik似不像, a multi-award winning interdisciplinary arts & design collective/ company who’s worked with Google, Microsoft & NIKE. www.sammychien.com
Photo credit: Joey Chaos of Bad/Good
Photo credit: Lucille Liu/Keedan Magazine
more details see Sammy Chien CV
Sammy Chien, has given more than 50 workshops, panels, guest lecture in Canada, ranging from new media workshop to marginalized communities, high school students to postgraduate & graduate students, as well as Equity, Diversity & Inclusion panels/talks for theatre organization such as The Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance (GVPTA), Associate Designers of Canada (ADC) and music organizations such as Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO). Sammy has mentored and guest lectured at Simon Fraser University, Bachelor of Performing Arts program at Capilano University & Douglas College and at University of Southern California (USC)’s New Media and Dance class and National Theatre School's BC NTS DramaFest.
Sammy is the Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Chimerik似不像 collective which have participated and created large scale new media performance projects in Asia including the official opening show for Taichung Light Festival with more than 30,000 audiences and over 19 shows in the outdoor historical site with projection mapping on balloons and water-stage on a lake. They’ve participated various festivals such as Digital Arts Festival of Taipei 2012 and Taipei World Design Expo 2011 also worked with corporations such as Microsoft and NIKE. Sammy is also the official selected mentor of Isadora and have completed two intensive one-on-one mentorship with the creator of the software, and have done new media/audiovisual tech from small independent theatre to large corporations such as Google. After studying with the Canadian-pioneer of computer music Barry Truax, his sound work with Chia Wei Hsu has been exhibited in major international museums such as Reina Sofia National Museum (Madrid) and Centre Georges Pompidou(Paris). His deep interest in dance has also miraculously lead him to dance on stage with dancers from companies such as Wen Wei Dance and Compagnie Marie Chouinard. In 2013, Sammy completed a deep collaboration and major production with the Beijing Modern Dance Company to premiere a new work for the 100th Anniversary of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring 十月春之祭 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts of China 國家大劇院 with a 3 weeks research travel and 2 month residency and production, working with artists such as Wong Kar Wai’s 王家衛 Cinematographer Christopher Doyle 杜可風, Zhang Yimou’s 張藝謀 production designer Gao Guangjian 高廣健, the Father of Rock in China Cui Jian 崔健 and having lunch with Ai Wei Wei 艾未未. In 2015, Sammy was commissioned as the media artist/researcher for Migrant Bodies Project: two-year international research project supported by the Culture Programme of European Union to investigate on the context of migration through the lens of contemporary arts, presented in Operaestate Festival Veneto 2015 in Italy. In late 2016, Sammy has just completed touring major cities in Canada with the piece Made In China, a co-creation interdisciplinary work with Wen Wei Dance, a 3 year development project integrating both sound, video, new media technology and movement with personal memories and socio-political and intercultural context. In 2017-2019, Sammy co-received the New Chapter grant, one of the largest funding in the history from Canada Council for the Arts, where he co-created Crossing Mountains & Seas at the Vancouver Playhouse. In 2017, Sammy completed an artist-in-residency at the El Graner (Centre For Creation of the Body and Movement) in Barcelona, planning a 2 year project with El Graner, Mira Festival (Barcelona) and Fly Global (Taipei).
Sammy completed a 5 year research solo project W(e)aves 熾 0.x W(e)aves 熾, which got presented as the feature performance of Vancouver Art Gallery’s Annual Auction, Richmond World Festival/Cinevolution’s Digital Carnival Festival, at MOA (Museum of Anthropology), Centre A, Pretty Good Not Bad Festival (Victoria), Berlin Lake Studio’s Unfinished Fridays, Vancouver New Music Festival, Heart of the City Festival 2019 & Surrey Art Gallery’s new media art symposium Sentient Circuitries Digital Media Arts Symposium's featured performance (as part of the 20th Anniversary of TechLab). During the research, Sammy completed artist-in-residency at Centre A, Lake Studio Berlin, El Graner (Barcelona), House of North (Berlin), Progress Lab (Electric Company Theatre) and OnMain Gallery (Paul Wong). Sammy was awarded BC Arts Council’s Professional Development grant (Media Arts, 2016), Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation grant (Dance, 2017) & Digital Original (Digital Arts, 2020) for this project.
From 2012-2023, Sammy has been awarded approximately 27 grants funding total over 680k.
Sammy Chien 簡上翔 (Chimerik 似不像) is the winner of the Changemaker Award for BCMA 2022 (BC Museums Association) for creative engagements that increase awareness of underrepresented voices & the 2023/2024 Chrystal Dance Prize.
Sammy also have great passion for community engagement, in which he does work and mentorship for marginalized groups such as low-income residents, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ2+, indigenous and youths (including: Queer Arts Festival, MOMENTUM Youth Arts Festival, IGNITE! Youth-driven Arts Festival, Vancouver Biennale, Heart of the City Festival, Family Fuse, Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival, Your Kontinent Digital Carnival Festival)
Additionally Sammy has extensive interest and background in spiritual practice for over 8 years. He has diverse spiritual background as part of his cultural upbringing from Taiwan at a young age. He has direct lineage from Nature Centre Qi Gong master and completed 3 intensive training on Spiritualism & Psychic Science at the Arthur Findlay College (the only recognized public institution in the world that teaches Spiritualism & Psychic Science in the UK)
Featured on CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/this-vancouver-artist-is-taking-dance-into-the-future-1.3958542 read more about Sammy: On Vancouver news paper La Source, Identity through differences: mentoring youth http://thelasource.com/en/2015/04/27/identity-through-differences-mentoring-youth/ Discorder Magazine interview: https://www.citr.ca/discorder/may-2017/sammy-chien/ read more about Sammy's work featured in magazine in Taiwan (in Traditional Chinese language中文): https://keedan.com/track/2018/12/13/interview-sammy-chien/?fbclid=IwAR144Nv4Om8bqydAAyeatFA381AjKXV3plgtvEieC0DcFztAi164goosdq4
Short Bio: Sammy Chien is a Taiwanese-Canadian immigrant and queer artist-of-colour, a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary artist, director, performer, researcher and mentor who's worked on over 500 projects across the globe ranging from film, audiovisual, new media art and performance. Sammy has been featured on CBC Arts, BenQ commercial, and is the official instructor of Isadora/the Co-Artistic Director of Chimerik 似不像, an multi-award-winning interdisciplinary non-profit arts organization. chimerik.com
More detail info: Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan/Truro, Nova Scotia. Currently in DTES/Japan town of Vancouver, BC, Canada LGBTQ2S+, QPOC, Racialize group, Taiwanese, immigrant group
Social media: IG: @chimerikcollective @soar55 Twitter: @chimerikco @soar55