HELLO I'M
DANY CHEN
ABOUT ME
Photography · Food · Life ·New Media
Dany Chen is a multidisciplinary digital media enthusiast who graduated with a BA in Digital Media Culture from King’s College London in June 2025.
Her academic journey has been defined by a strong engagement with theories and practices of the digital realm and new media cultures. In Spring 2024, she expanded her horizons as an exchange student at Cornell University, majoring in Communication. There, she explored media production labs, communication research methods, and even ventured into applied economic management, which deepened her business-oriented perspective.
DIGITAL PROJECTS
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PHOTOGRAPHY
FOOD PROJECTS
UNESCO × Lee Kum Kee Forever Flavors Project
I participated in the UNESCO × Lee Kum Kee Forever Flavors Project, a global initiative centered on preserving culinary heritage through personal food memories and cultural storytelling. As part of the project, I contributed my own story, The Last Box of Dumplings, which was later included in the project archive. In this piece, I reflected on my mother, migration, and how food can become a language of love, memory, and home across distance. Through this experience, I explored how an intimate personal story can also become part of a wider cultural narrative about belonging, family, and heritage.
From Cheesecake to Community
60 Cheesecakes, 30 Stories Across USC
Phrase 1:Classroom Connection Through Cheesecake
I began by making 30 homemade cheesecakes and bringing them to class as a way to connect with others. Through this simple food exchange, I met 30 new people and used food as a starting point for conversation, connection, and community building.
Phase 2: Expanding Across USC Campus
I then expanded the project beyond the classroom into the wider USC campus, collecting over 30 food-related stories from students, professors, advisors, and instructors. Most stories were handwritten, while around six participants also took part in interviews. This stage transformed the project from personal interaction into a broader campus storytelling initiative.
Campaign Posters
I designed multilingual versions of the poster myself and shared them across Instagram and Xiaohongshu (RedNote) in both English and Chinese.
Phase 3: Transforming Stories Into Multi-Platform Content
In the final stage, I organized the handwritten food stories into a visual storytelling map and transformed the interview content into short-form video storytelling. This allowed the project to evolve from offline exchanges into a larger multimedia project exploring food, memory, identity, and human connection through writing, visuals, and video.
Food, Media & Cultural Insights
A reflective content series where I explore ideas from books, podcasts, cultural conversations, and everyday observations related to food. Through articles and essays, I translate these inputs into accessible reflections on identity, memory, migration, consumer culture, and human connection.
