Monica Chau is a mixed media installation artist who utilizes photography and digital media processes as a means to explore Asian American history and memories of the past. An inextricable part of her art juxtaposes text and image to comment upon the process of looking and being looked at, both as a woman and as an Asian American.
Chau received her MFA in photography from California Institute of the Arts. While a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow in the Whitney Museum of Art’s Independent Study Program, she co-curated the exhibition, “The Subject of Rape.” She later curated the first exhibition of photography and related media in the Southwest by Asian American artists entitled “Picturing Asia America: Communities, Culture, Difference” for the Houston Center of Photography.
Her awards include the American/Chinese Adventure Capital grant from the Durfee Foundation, NEA/Western States Arts Federation grant, and an artist-in-residency in Photography/Digital Imaging at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. She was a former digital program director at the Maine Photographic Workshops (now Maine Media Workshops) and taught at the University of California, Irvine; American Film Institute; New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; and the International Center for Photography’s Digital Media Program.