Joyce Yu-Jean Lee
Joyce Yu-Jean Lee is a visual artist working with video, photography, interactive installation and performance that combine social practice, institutional critique and activism together in an interdisciplinary practice. She is the founder of FIREWALL Internet Cafe social software consisting of a Google and Baidu dual-search engine that garnered backlash from Chinese state authorities in 2016.
Background
Lee was born in Richardson, Texas to Chinese-Taiwanese immigrants, James C. and Patty Lee. Her siblings are architect, Juliet Lee and Joshua Lee. Her cousin is jazz pianist, Helen Sung. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Arts & Sciences, University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a major in Communication and double minors in Psychology and Fine Art.In 2010, Lee earned her Masters of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art from the Mount Royal School of Art.
Career
Lee was awarded a Vermont Studio Center fellowship supported by the Joan Mitchell Foundation, as well as a Henry Walters Traveling Scholarship to the Netherlands and Germany by the Walters Museum in Baltimore, MD upon graduating with her MFA in 2010. In 2012, Lee held Passages, a solo exhibition at Hamiltonian Gallery, Washington D.C. In 2013, Lee was awarded the Maryland State Arts Council 2013 Individual Artist Award as well as the Franklin Furnace Fund Grant. The latter was instrumental in her creation of the social project FIREWALL. Lee was awarded the Asian Women Giving Circle grant in 2015 and in 2016, Lee launched the first popup exhibition of FIREWALL at Chinatown Soup in Chinatown, Manhattan. Lee completed her first permanent digital installation, Aqua Lumen, in Alexandria, VA. Aqua Lumen was commissioned by Gables Old Town North in 2019.Lee is currently Assistant Professor of Art & Digital Media at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.