TEAM

JINGRU (CYAN) CHENG

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Jingru (Cyan) Cheng works across architecture, anthropology, and filmmaking. Her practice follows drifting bodies—from rural migrant workers to forms of water—to confront intensified social injustice and ecological crisis.

Cyan was awarded the Harvard GSD’s 2023 Wheelwright Prize for TRACING SAND; received two commendations from the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) President’s Awards for Research in 2020 and 2018; and won the Architecture Short Film Award at the Milano Design Film Festival in 2024 and the Best Short Film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival in 2023, all as part of RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING. Cyan’s work has been exhibited internationally, as part of Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics at ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany (2020-22), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2019), Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), among others, and included in the Architectural Association’s permanent collection.

Cyan holds a PhD by Design and M.Phil Projective Cities from the Architectural Association (AA) and was the co-director of AA Wuhan Visiting School (2015-17). She co-led the MA architectural design studio Politics of the Atmosphere (2019-22) and currently teaches an interdisciplinary module across all schools at the Royal College of Art in London. She is also Canadian Centre for Architecture’s CCA-Mellon Multidisciplinary Researcher (2024-25) on field research as a land-dependent practice.

CHEN ZHAN

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Chen Zhan is an architect, anthropologist, and independent filmmaker, trained at the Architectural Association and SOAS University of London respectively.

An UK-registered architect, Chen worked on various award-winning projects across scales and sectors internationally since 2011, including the Maggie’s Cancer Care Center in Leeds, UK.

As a self-reflexive turn from a designer’s mind, Chen dived into anthropology in search of a different way of seeing the world. Since 2019, Chen has been using film as a collaborative medium to conduct long-term research-oriented projects, winning the Architecture Short Film Award at the Milano Design Film Festival in 2024 and the Best Short Film at the Venice Architecture Film Festival in 2023. Her projects include Orchid, Bee and I, a fictional ethnography that reflects on personal and collective experiences of living through the climate crisis and the Covid pandemic, and Ripple Ripple Rippling, a transdisciplinary endeavour that attunes to how Chinese rural migrant workers make worlds.

Chen is currently part of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s CCA-Mellon multidisciplinary research group—In the Hurricane, On the Land—looking into field research as a land-dependent practice.

MENGFAN WANG

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Mengfan Wang is an independent theatre director and choreographer, with training in History of Art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, and Dance Studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Cologne.

Seeking to explore performative expressions of ordinary people, her dance theatre practice engages middle-aged women and children through a collaborative rework of daily acts and recently focuses on ageing bodies by working with retired ballet dancers.

Mengfan is selected as “Dance Hopeful (Hoffnungsträger)” by German dance magazine tanz in its yearbook 2018. Her dance works have been invited to VIE Festival Bologna, Beijing Fringe Festival, Wuzhen Theater Festival, among others. Commissioned by the Centre Pompidou and the West Bund Museum Shanghai, her latest work Narrative Fountain was shown as part of Women in Motion 2023. Mengfan’s artist residencies span across Shanghai, Berlin, Copenhagen and Zurich, including working with Theatre HORA supported by the Swiss Arts Council.

CONTEXT
Floating, Dissolving, Rippling ︎︎︎

FIELDWORK
Material Dependencies ︎︎︎
House Foundations ︎︎︎
Chair & Active Waiting ︎︎︎
Situated Imaginaries ︎︎︎
Collective Happening ︎︎︎

FILM TRILOGY
On the Margins ︎︎︎
The Hall ︎︎︎
Till Ashes Turn into Pines ︎︎︎

Back to PROJECT ︎︎︎
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