Vivien Chan

Dr., she/they
I am a design historian, educator, writer, and imagemaker based in the UK.I research design history and material culture in Hong Kong with a broad interest in design and the everyday. I teach illustration and design research at Nottingham Trent University and have guest lectured at the Royal College of Art, Kingston School of Art and Academy of Visual Art at Baptist University Hong Kong.I am also a History Workshop Editorial Fellow 2023-2025, and an Honorary Fellow at the Raphael Samuel History Centre, Birkbeck, University of London.

You can find me on the internet
or you can email me at vc[at]vivienchan.co.uk
︎ ︎ ︎ ︎

portrait by Rachel Meng Man, 2023

Selected articles I’ve written:
Race & Design, ed. Davinia Gregory-Kameka and Sabrina Rahman, ‘Squatters’ rites: ‘anti-design’ and the body at the dai pai dong in Hong Kong’(forthcoming)

Short Eats, ed. Nicole Tan, ‘Catch of the Day’ March 2025

History Workshop, ‘From Place to Place’ series introduction, January 2025 (series editor)

Filler zine #8: Kitchens,’Appliance’, November 2024

Corridor8,‘Steph Huang: there is nothing old under the sun’, esea contemporary exhibition review, November 2024

Archivio #10: Design, Archiving Archiving (interview), September 2024

Meritalia Magazine, ‘Decomposure’, ed. by Andrea Foffa and Marta Franceschini, April 2024

CONGEE Zine, ‘Ad Hoc Juk’, August 2023, in collaboration with artist Alastair Kwan and F.A.T. Studio

Fortified Gazette, 13th- 17th September 2022, peeling prawns; repetoires and gifts; here, a Nutrigrain bar; gravy; fervour/flavour

Fortified Issue 003, ‘Sweet treats & school puds’, July 2022

Urban History, April 2022,‘Markets made modular:constructing the modern ‘wet’ market in Hong Kong’s public housing estates’︎ Shortlisted on the Hong Kong Studies IBP 2023

Centre for Global Design History,June 2021, Report- Design Archives in Asia Symposium

Geofictions: Work in Progress, ed. Zara Arshad, February 2021,Interviewing Alvin Li and Junyuan Feng, curators of Liquid Ground

You can hear me speak on these podcasts/videos:
The last of Hong Kong’s street food rebels, SCMP

Reverberations by Zara Arshad

Women read

Academic lectures, conferences and workshops:
‘Corridor kitchens, mushroom pavilions: foodscapes of cooked food hawkers in post-war Hong Kong’, Foodscaping Asia II: Metropolis, ICAS 13 Crossways of Knowledge, Surabaya, Indonesia, July 2024

dressing eating living moving workshop (co-convenor), ICAS 13 Crossways of Knowledge, Surabaya, Indonesia, July 2024

‘Exhibiting Spatial Histories: Design History and Cross-cultural Spatial Narratives of Hong Kong' panel (co-convenor), Workshop on Hong Kong Cultures, Arts and Languages in the UK, University of Sheffield, June 2024

HKSA Annual Conference, University of Sheffield, May 2024

‘The Pitch and the Module: hawkers and markets in designing post-war Hong Kong's New Towns public housing estates’, Universität Wien, April 2024

‘Hidden Histories’ workshop, University of Nottingham, March 2024

'Everyday rituals in the British Empire and after' workshop, University of Nottingham, June 2023

Disclosing Architecture, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam,November 2022

‘Archival Interference: Counter-archives and Design History in Asia’, Archival Interactions Symposium, DAS Amsterdam, June 2022

Other speaking events:
(History of) Having -> (Designing) Being, Creative Voice deTour 2024, PMQ Hong Kong, December 2024

Beyond the Egg Tart:Everyday perspectives of Hong Kong visual culture, Romance in the Mundane Roundtable Talks, Gathering Leaves, September 2024

University of Nottingham Humanities delegation, University of Adelaide, November 2023

Introduction to Girl’s School by Lee Mimi, Queer East, Broadway Cinema, Nottingham, November 2022