Short Film

Transfusion

debut experimental short animated film
mixed media, sculpture, 2D/3D
created with support from CARFAC SASK’s foundational mentorship program,
University of Saskatchewan’s CAPACITOR program,
Canada Council Emerging Media Arts Concept to Realization grant.

Jo gets possessed right before their older brother's rebaptism.

Home of Diaspora

concept, script direction, storyboards, digial animation
for CBC Saskatchewan 2022

Raw

paper animation, digital animation, post prod.
CBC Nova Scotia, 2020.
Screened at Lunenberg Doc Fest 2020, Animation Festival of Halifax 2021.

Experiments

Transfusion, Crocodile Scene Sculptures

metal sculpture, woodworking, fabric, paint, ceramic, digital painting, photoshop, cinema 4D.
10 in x 14 in x 14 in
created in Regina, SK as part of the CARFAC SASK Foundational Mentorship Program, mentored by sculpture artist Frans Lotz.
this is a miniature set created for my experimental animated short film, Transfusion (2023-2024).

Below (6 images, process)

Periwinkle (2021)

Dialogue Animation test
plasticine, marker, carving tools, toonboom harmony, cintiq
video:

ROOT short film trilogy

Baskethead

Tang

paper on glass exploration
screened at NSCAD Expanded Media Showcase 2019

CW: strong language

Exhibition

Thoughts of a Digital Archivist

Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre

Window Gallery, Regina SK
Augmented Reality, Multimedia Art Installation
Sept_01-Oct_16_2020
featured on gallerieswest

THOUGHTS OF A DIGITAL ARCHIVIST: by Cyril Chen (they/them) is an evolving piece in response to their role as an archive assistant at Neutral Ground Artist Run Centre.

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‘The archival process is one of re-animation. An introspective endeavour in post-spectatorship. You become friends with unfamiliar people and places. You seek within yourself the same nodes of reflection, striving for sensitivity or humbleness towards these bodies of work; not to be simply reduced to a spreadsheet data point.

Can digital files become haunted? I look at images of eyes and hands who have reigned before me and I wonder if they see me too. In real life, I sort through boxes of documents and brochures, and out of date light fixtures, handled and touched for art exhibited in my absence.

Digital media possesses an uncertain finality. We feel these underlying anxieties. We try not to be shallow. What is not tactile but still holds place in the world? An illumination of the metaphysical.

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on permanence,
on illumination,
on ghosts

Projection

Mom’s Garden - 妈妈的菜园 (2021)

Screened at AFH 2021, ddis Video Art Festival (Ethiopia, 2022). WNDX Festival of Moving Image (Winnipeg, 2022). Created for Plants in Contemporary Art class at University of Regina as a NSCAD visiting student in media arts.
Produced in Regina, Saskatchewan.

110 in by 38.5 in

Mom's Garden - 妈妈的菜园 : An ode to paper animation; Cyril archives their mother-tongue as they draw from the roots of their Mother’s Garden, planted in Regina Saskatchewan with seeds carried over from Yangchun, Canton China.

Screening Video:

Installation Video:

Photos (by Cyril Chen):

Illustrations created in exploration:

dying rose
10” x 14”
pastel

dying bouquet
12” x 17”
pastel

Neutral Ground 40th anniversary party Archive projection (2022)

Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre, Nov 2022, Regina SK

Video:

Photos below (1-2) by Yuji Lee