Laura Chen (b. 1997) is a Dutch image maker and writer based in London.
Using photography as a catalyst for her imagination, Chen's eclectic visual discourse is experimental and playful. She often employs mixed-media elements, including text, video, sound, collage and analogue photomontage techniques. Within her work, research, implementation and intervention are closely intertwined. Her multidisciplinary practice is an investigation into forms of otherness and outlines the obscurities and idiosyncrasies of the mundane. Be it objects, places or people situated on the fringes of society — her images are tranquil observations of the visible traces and rituals of daily life that may otherwise go unnoticed. Alongside themes of the ignored, overlooked and forgotten, recurring interests include fiction, illusion, mise-en-scène, memory, nostalgia, linguistics, identity, psychology, genealogy, mythology, synchronicity, and avant-garde art movements.
In 2022 she was nominated as FOAM Talent, LensCulture Summer Open Award Winner, Rabo Photographic Portrait Talent Winner, Palm* Photo Prize Finalist and Prix Virginia Finalist. Her work has been featured in and published by FOAM, Photo London, PhMuseum, British Journal of Photography, Source, PHROOM, Fisheye, Canon, Dutch National Portrait Gallery, amongst others.
She has internationally exhibited at Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (DE), Foam Amsterdam (NL), Pingyao International Photography Festival (CHN), 10 14 Gallery London (UK), Open Eye Gallery Liverpool (UK), Midlands Art Centre (UK), Ikon Gallery (UK), Westergas Amsterdam (NL), Depot in Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam (NL), Keilepand Rotterdam (NL) and Garagem 180 Porto (PT).
In 2020 she graduated from Birmingham City University with a BA in Photography and in 2022 with an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster London.
