Check Out Joy Chan’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joy Chan.

Hi Joy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a Malaysian video artist based in Los Angeles who works among video art, documentary and installation. My visual artwork has been featured by VICE Asia and been screened in several international film festivals such as SeaShorts, and Indie Film Fest, as well as exhibited in galleries – Zontiga, MOMA Beijing. Being a Malaysian who moved abroad for most of her life has raised my curiosity in the concepts of space, home as well as the sense of belonging, and empowered my artistic creation. In my own practice as well as everyday life, I tend to observe how people live in a space.

Coming from a Journalism and documentary-making background, I learned about the power of documentary as well as telling the stories of people. I enjoy the experience of meeting people during fieldwork, having mind-opening conversations with encounters that actually provides me an approach to life, culture and people. Throughout the three years of making social and anthropology documentaries, I found that I particularly enjoy the experience of immersing in a different culture, community, more importantly a dissimilar social position and identity. The approach of making a documentary allows the filmmaker to live another life and to be in others’ shoes for a period of time within my own limited lifespan. It’s like taking a time machine, I commit to diving into sociological observation and participatory events with film and video as my allies to confront perspectives and perceptions as well as to reflect on the personal and collective worlds. The more practice I’ve done, the more I thought about the narrative and ethnic aspects of the documentary genre. I started to search for an expression that breaks convention and confronts the norm of how stories can be told.

With that in mind, I started my journey in pursuit of the art of visual storytelling in the California Institute of the Arts as a Film and Video major graduate student. In just a blink of an eye, I’m graduating this summer. Along the journey of experimenting with film and video, the media itself, my focus has been redirected to material witnessing and image reading as an approach to document versions of reality.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Working with film and video, the media itself has been challenging. The practice of filmmaking demands strong creativity as well as a detail-oriented and organized production mind at the same time. It usually begins with an idea, a concept or merely a moment, then requires motives, patience, a ton of resources as well as a determined mind to turn raw materials into a finished creative work. Filmmaking, for most of the time, is not a one-man job, instead, it takes labor, money and time to produce and develop. The biggest challenge along the journey is being constant and determined to work through the tedious process of prepping, production,  and post-production, which can wear creativity out yet at the same time, leads to the creative result. As an independent filmmaker sometimes restricted by the situation, I’ve been learning to work with moments of exhaustion, self-doubt and solitariness.

Meanwhile, being a Malaysian filmmaker hasn’t made the journey any easier. Gladly we are starting to have more voices of Asian society generally, yet the attention, support, and understanding to Southeast Asian society hasn’t been much.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work with the media, film and video with the format of video art, documentary and audiovisual installation. My work has been focusing on the idea of material witnessing and image reading. By collecting moments of images and sound, I compose the stories of people’s life, then display them to challenge forgetfulness.

In the work, The Outfall: A Wasteland of Mud (2022), I spent over a year to capture film stills and collect water samples from seven rivers in Kuala Lumpur (Capital of Malaysia). By burying the film negatives in the soil and water samples, decay happened and is displayed on the film negatives and tells the story of the city itself. In this project, I try to confront the water pollution and disruption situations that have been happening in the city for decades. We forget and ignore, but I hope my work captures and makes people remember while bearing witnesses is a valuable approach to process experience, memories and emotion, to fight against amnesia,

In my recent installation work, She lives on the Moon, I utilized found footage from archives and my family album to tell the story of my Grandma and her Alzheimer’s. By displaying personal as well as collective memories on the wall with projection mapping, I raise questions about remembering and forgetting. A similar expression I had used in my video work, The Lifespan of a Recording, is telling the story of two car accidents with Google Map images. While looking at the moment and trauma of losing a loved one, the piece looks into the validity of online/personal archival images, and how images are uploaded, downloaded and stored digitally, memorized as well as forgotten in one’s head.

As a Gen Z who grew up in a strong internet culture, I learned about archiving and witnessing in a very digital way, that has also drawn my interest to express myself as a video artist. I’m proud of my ability in weaving stories with poetic narratives and modern technology. Among my works, I try to explore the validity and unreliability of digital materials and open discussion with memories and the forgetfulness of people.

What does success mean to you?
For me, as a video artist, being successful is being understood and recognized for the narratives you’ve weaved, the statement you are trying to make in your work. It’s definitely not easy to be understood or be interpreted the way the author wants, but I hope I can make engaging work that touches people’s hearts. For what I think this is the key ability of a storyteller.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vimeo.com/joychan
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joyuzu/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-chan-9765a5162/

Image Credits
No8 & 9, screenshot from my feature work, courtesy of cinematographer Melvin Liew Hong Bin