Chow and Lin, as a contemporary artist duo, entered the contemporary art world and became artists through a path that stands out among the many graduates of fine art academies — an atypical journey. The "Chow" in Chow and Lin is Stefen Chow, who has a background in engineering, works as an alpine mountaineer, and is also a commercial photographer. The "Lin" is Huiyi Lin, who comes from a social sciences background and is an economist. In 2010, they created their first collaborative project, The Poverty Line. Using food as a universal lens, the project explores the daily choices faced by people living on the edge of the poverty line. Based on official poverty definitions in different countries, the artists calculate the daily per capita poverty line for various regions and purchase food in local markets according to that amount. They then photograph the food placed on top of that day's local newspaper. This body of work was acquired by the CAFA Art Museum in 2015 and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 2023. The project continues to this day. More recently, in September of this year, their latest solo exhibition, Even If It Looks Like Grass, was presented in its entirety at BOUND SPACE.

Interestingly, as we learned through conversation, at the beginning of their practice, Chow and Lin did not consider themselves to be making contemporary art, nor did they see themselves as contemporary artists. Their starting point was instead a reflection on the medium of photography, a sustained concern for the social systems they inhabit, and a desire to express various social issues through different media languages. Of course, today Chow and Lin have crossed the boundaries of profession, discipline, and identity, entering the context of contemporary art through a hybrid and pluralistic lens of vision and experiential learning. Whether in the ongoing The Poverty Line or in works from the past two years that focus on wheat and data, such as Even If It Looks Like Grass, their creations often employ imagery, but they also use a variety of other media as modes of artistic presentation. Examples include Decentralized Value Systems, where Erguotou liquor and mobile phones are used to question contemporary economic frameworks, and Everything I Own, where the scent of bread and the sound of chewing evoke a sensory reimagining of daily experience.

At the same time, as the conversation reveals, the individual experiences of the duo — such as climbing Mount Everest, studying photography, and conducting economic research — constantly resonate in their works. For instance, Stefen Chow recalls that while climbing in the Himalayas, he observed how different systems of knowledge and support behind individuals lead to vastly different outcomes. Climbing the same snowy mountain, but undertaken by different people, could yield entirely different valuations of the experience. Huiyi Lin, meanwhile, notes that it was during her concrete economic research work that she began to develop an interest in looking at things through both macro and micro relational perspectives.

One could say that they have experienced a twofold shift and interweaving of identities: that of Chow and Lin as individuals, and that of Chow and Lin as a collective. As individuals, Stefen Chow and Huiyi Lin each have their own trajectories. As ethnic Chinese from Malaysia and Singapore respectively, they have both followed elite paths, growing up, living, and working in an international, multicultural context, each with their own pursuits and vocations. As a collective, Chow and Lin represent the merging of these two individual branches. It began with mutual companionship and conversation over shared interests, gradually evolving into a transformation and self-identification within the contemporary art world — from photographer and economist to contemporary artists.

This journey and transformation naturally arouse curiosity and a desire to revisit its origins. And that, too, is the thread that runs through the entire conversation…