Kelly Ka Lai Chan

Kelly Ka Lai Chan is a visual ethnographer, documentarian and educator. She is a Postdoctoral Researcher at HDK-Valand at the University of Gothenburg, working on the ERC-funded artistic research project Things for Politics’ Sake: Aesthetic Objects and Social Change (ERC, THINGSTIGATE, 101041284, 2023-2028), led by artist/ researcher Dr Tintin Wulia.

Kelly’s research focuses on art, activism and urban space; subjectivity and post-coloniality; and displacement and social justice. She specialises in arts-based and digital methods for transdisciplinary research and education.

Kelly completed her practice-based PhD, entitled Artist-Activists in Protest Hong Kong (2018-2023), at the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University in Australia. Her recent digital ethnographic outputs include Muslims of Victoria (2024-), a community project funded by the Public Record Office of Victoria, Australia, and The Othello Theatre in Education Project (2023), developed by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia.