Kelsey Chen (she/her) is a PhD student in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University, fellow at the Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race & ethnicity, and an interdisciplinary artist. She is an historian of the future—Kelsey studies how the future is summoned and invoked into being as a ritual, relational process. Focusing on how peoples of the global south generate new effective realities (future) in the pursuit of collective liberation within the enclosed present, she is currently investigating Black, Indigenous, and Asian American sci-fi future-worlds that invoke ancient wisdom traditions to reconceptualize what technology is and could be—and show how the technic can exceed the language of dominion, control, and optimization.

Stanford PhD Candidate, Modern Thought & Literature

Harvard ‘22 B.A. Social Studies and History of Art & Architecture; Art, Film, and Visual Studies. Summa Cum Laude.

contact: kelseychen0@gmail.com

the unfencing | kels | Substack

photos

Photos of work and cinematography largely by Sol Brooks, Daniel Huang, Shereen Kheradyar, and Dumebi Adigwe