Vivien Chan is a design historian, educator, writer, and imagemaker based in the UK.
Space
I research, write, and teach about space and culture. I think about materials, relationships, and how people connect in space.I completed my PhD in 2024 with my thesis titled “A Colony of Shopkeepers”: Spaces of Consumption in New Towns public housing estates, Hong Kong, 1954-1989. My research was part of the Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth-century Asia project (COTCA) led by Dr. Jeremy Taylor at University of Nottingham. My current post-doctoral fellowship at the International Institute for Asian Studies continues some of this research, focusing on Wet Spaces: embodied spatial-historical practices of wetness in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
I completed my MA History of Design thesis Assembling the dai pai dong: Living and Occupying the Street in Hong Kong, 1950s - present at the Royal College of Art/ V&A Museum in 2017.
I’m also interested in multi-disciplinary research methodologies and archives. Moving through space and experiencing it holistically forms my thinking of the research itself. Touching the page, tasting and smelling the market, navigating the landscape, making light or deep conversation, moving from place to place, all help to ground myself in the work.
I’m also interested in multi-disciplinary research methodologies and archives. Moving through space and experiencing it holistically forms my thinking of the research itself. Touching the page, tasting and smelling the market, navigating the landscape, making light or deep conversation, moving from place to place, all help to ground myself in the work.
