Liang Jung Chen

0:04 Good evening everyone. Um I am Chan Leang and you can also call me Leah. And um uh it was actually in January of 2019 that I bought my ticket to the first ever Nicer Tuesday event. And uh seven years later, tada here I am on the stage. So um in my practice I build this situations from everyday artifacts and infrastructures and I stage tension um that expand the material materiality beyond the familiar.

0:54 For example, uh I hosted a studio party and I made a rule for my friends that they could only eat the fruits by packing them instead of using their hands. And the other work include a series of um egg holders that put egg in danger but also quite secure. No eggs were harmed. And for an outdoor bianual in Austrian Alps, I made portable wing socks that visualized airflow surf speed and they were made of uh disused parachute textiles.

1:52 And at the VNA museum, I worked with stensor barriers, the retractable barrier system you see in the public. and I extended them and wo them into um pattern that span across three floors and the pattern shifted whenever one of the belt is being pulled or relieved. Another installation features the constructed speakers uh without casing and exposing the entangled cables um and suspending the speakers in the air.

2:39 and um hardware archive um a website where I virtually collect hardware items online and clicking on each of them either leads you to Wikipedia page or screw fix websites. Um yeah so as you can see I tend to work quite resourcefully and um I upcycle like situation around me. Um, but today I'm going to talk about a project that is very personal and to do so we have to go back in time.

3:21 So, growing up in rural Taiwan, I went through quite stereotypical uh cramming education system overloaded with unnecessary information that I couldn't cope with. But I loved taking notes in creative layouts. Same applies to my diaries and they are always full of like uh trivia. And this skill came in handy when I was preparing for my life in the UK test last year for my indefinite leave to remain application and taking notes has become kind of like a coping mechanism where I feel like noting them down noting things down kind of make them feel more manageable.

4:18 So, I learned so much about the UK in one week and I passed the test and now embarrassingly I think I forgot a lot of them. But however, as a very disorganized person, the real test for me was actually the indefinite leave to remain application fee, which was introduced in 2003 at uh 155 quid. And by 2025, it's now £3,29.

5:02 Can you believe it? And once I added other costs, I realized I needed to save at least like 5,389 in 4 months before my visa expired, which gave me extreme anxiety. And this period uh coincided with um upcoming group show. and I obviously didn't have time to make work. So I decided to use this crisis as the work um to present the extensive spreadsheet showing all the jobs I took on on top of running my art studio. So over the course of uh three and five months, I worked around 71 shift ranging from 2 to 13 hours and with hourly pay between 12 21 uh 12 21 p and 100 of 14 and uh totaling to 7,732.

6:19 two and 21 pens. I also extended the project across other online platforms each each capturing different aspect of my desperation. um inspired by the online creation uh with those YouTubers commodify their privacy and personal stories for engagement and income. I also made a stu video sharing my job uh experiences in London. is hilarious really um full of awkward moments and um small anecdotes which you can see um later after the talk somewhere online and yeah it was my comedian moment.

7:21 I also love like watching vlogs especially the really boring mundane ones. So, I set up a Tik Tok account where I posted a daily um self-imposed CCTV style video. Um, it's funny to think about. It's kind of like a a performative self surveillance. Um, and this clips show uh me distributing flyers uh for my crowdfunding campaign in art museums across London, but without much success sadly.

8:04 And uh on Google Maps, I showed the recording of my commute and the cost in London. Sometimes it just takes so long to and so much money to get to one place to do a job that doesn't really pay that much. And this kind of like repetitive movement um feels a bit like a geographical uh geological time that is accumulative and ingrained.

8:44 So yeah, so this was my show at White Chapel Gallery in October 2025 where people came to admire my spreadsheet. Um, I set up a donation point in the gallery and received 48 pound. [snorts] And uh, it was actually a very emotional evening because so many strangers came up to me to to express how much the project has resonated with them.

9:23 So after more hustles hustling and in December 2025, I received confirmation from the home office saying that my status has been granted. And to be honest, it felt like like I just passed another exam. And um it's not just like financial pressure. It's also triggered like existential crisis and identity crisis in me questioning why I left my home country behind to live here. Um but at the same time I also want to acknowledge my privilege as in um I am able to move to the UK voluntarily and to be an artist in London is a like a double luxury.

10:22 So I would also like to take the moment to express solidarity with all those currently ne navigating through immigration system. London is a magical place where I meet so many lovely people here and many of whom have fled uh have came here because of the difficult circumstances back home and now face prolonged uncertainty while LA's laws remain unresolved.

10:55 So the power of making the numbers and my journey transparent um I hope it will kind of make people feel less alone. And the project has also planted a seed in me where I was thinking oh maybe I could have make this further into a database where people can kind of like um a support network of migrant.

11:23 So yeah, so that being said said, what's next? So [snorts] luckily as a Taiwanese citizen, I can go on to apply to British citizenship without renouncing my passport. So yeah, I'm going to do that. The citizenship somehow surprisingly only cost £1,770 and the passport itself cost 9450 £9450. Um yeah it's it's like half the price of indefinitely to remain. So, it's like okay. And um yeah, and I thank is nice set for putting the first £250 in for my speaker fee tonight.

12:18 Thank you. [applause] [cheering]