We recently connected with Bojun Chen and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bojun thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I’m a recent graduate from Columbia University’s Film and Media Studies MA program, where I focused on the Film Studies track, a path typically rooted in theory, critical analysis, and academic writing. Coming from a humanities background, I had little experience with creative or technical production. But during grad school, I began exploring areas outside my comfort zone, especially creative coding. One of the most meaningful projects I worked on was “Mondrian-Inspired Interactive Art Generator,” a Python-based tool that allows users to generate and manipulate geometric compositions inspired by Mondrian. I used Tkinter to create an interactive interface, giving users the ability to adjust colors, reset the canvas, and explore randomized palettes. I also developed a personal project “Code and Folklore Fusion” that combined my cultural background with coding, using APIs to build a tool that connects weather data, the Chinese lunar calendar, and dream interpretation. It offered personalized clothing suggestions based on temperature and included symbolic readings of dreams, designed especially with my family in mind. These projects opened up new ways of thinking for me. Coming from a background where writing and analysis were the norm, I had never imagined myself building tools or designing experiences. But through coding, I began to see that creativity isn’t limited to any one discipline—it can take shape in unexpected forms. What started as an experiment became a way of reimagining how I engage with sound, technology, and film. I’m now exploring how these threads might come together in an experimental project focused on cinematic sound, not as an escape from theory, but as a continuation of it through different means.

Bojun, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a recent graduate of Columbia University’s Film and Media Studies MA program, where I focused on film sound and queer theory. I’m especially interested in how sound can be a productive force, creating queer space, forming connections to feminism, and disrupting dominant ways of perceiving time, space, and the body. I first entered this field as an undergraduate, drawn to how cinema offers both intellectual and sensory experiences. Over time, I became especially fascinated by sound, not just as a technical element, but as something affective, immersive, and often overlooked in film analysis. What sets my work apart is this commitment to bridging theory and creative practice: exploring how critical inquiry and artistic experimentation can inform each other. In recent years, I’ve begun incorporating creative coding and interactive design into my process. These works may be small in scale, but they offer a way to put into practice the questions and passions I explore through research. What I’m most proud of is staying with this field from my undergraduate studies through to my graduate studies, and letting it evolve with me. Going forward, I hope to continue this trajectory through doctoral research and experimental media projects, especially those that explore the affective power of sound across queer and feminist frameworks.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I’ve seen many of my artist friends struggle with the decreasing availability of grants and sponsorships, especially as some programs have been scaled back in recent years. I believe society can better support creatives by ensuring stable, long-term funding opportunities that recognize the time, care, and risk-taking involved in making art.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My creative journey is grounded in the desire to one day present an immersive, interactive project, one that invites audiences to engage with sound and space in a deeply sensory way. I’m interested in creating environments that encourage close listening and embodied experience, and I hope to continue developing work that explores how sound can shape perception, emotion, and connection.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bojunchen