Founder
Chia-
Chen
Hsu
Artist and Art Educator
I founded CCH ART NOW in Taiwan to explore how art and sustained, hands-on making can give people room to develop their own ideas, exercise judgment, and find a way forward when things become difficult.
My teaching and art education practice began in 2009. My experiences across Taiwan, Canada, the United States, and Brazil have brought together studio teaching, creative advising, and community-based art education.
MA, Art Education — School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013
BFA, Visual Arts — Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2010
THE CONTEXT BEHIND CCH
Why CCH Took Shape in Taiwan
Working in Taiwan, a major technology and semiconductor hub, has shaped the questions behind CCH. Many of the families I work with come from engineering and high-tech backgrounds. Conversations with these parents have led me to think more deeply about the abilities children need to keep developing as AI becomes part of everyday learning—attention, independent judgment, and the confidence to explore their own ideas.
These concerns meet practical questions I face in the studio every day: When should I offer help? When should I wait? How can I support a learner without taking over their decisions?
My experiences across cultures also remind me that expectations around independence, achievement, and adult guidance differ. These differences matter when developing CCH and exploring how it might work in other communities.
HOW THE FRAMEWORK DEVELOPED
From Studio Practice to CCH
In CCH sessions, learners work with open-ended materials over extended periods, without screens or a finished model to copy. They try things out, encounter difficulties, revise their plans, and return to unfinished work.
I provide technical support when needed while keeping decisions about the direction of the work in the learner’s hands. A child may need help connecting two pieces, for example, while still deciding where those pieces belong and what they want to build.
I pay attention to what happens along the way: how someone begins without a clear answer, what they do when a structure fails, and how they decide whether to continue, change direction, or stop. These moments make aspects of attention, judgment, and ownership visible.
Today, I am developing these observations into a documented framework for studio practice. Session records, process photographs, and parent feedback help me examine how learners engage with materials and take ownership of their work over time.
The framework remains under development. These records provide a basis for further research, including clearer observation methods, independent review, and exploration across different learning environments.
THE QUESTION GUIDING MY WORK
How Do We Keep Practicing Our Own Judgment?
As AI makes answers easier to get, how can education preserve opportunities for people to practice thinking, deciding, and acting for themselves?
CCH approaches this question through the design of the learning environment. Materials offer feedback. Structures need support. Earlier choices affect what becomes possible next. Learners have opportunities to form an intention, test it, and decide how to respond.
Long sessions include rest, movement, uncertainty, and returning to the work. Time matters when it gives a learner room to stay connected to an evolving idea; duration alone does not demonstrate learning.
My aim is to understand how these experiences can support human agency—the ability to initiate, revise, and take ownership of action—as technology becomes part of everyday learning.
PROFESSIONAL FOUNDATION
Art, Education, and Cross-Cultural Practice
My fine arts training included painting, drawing, photography, ceramics, sculpture, print media, book arts, and visual communication. Working across these media helps me adapt materials, scale, and process to the learner and the question at hand.
My graduate studies in art education expanded this foundation through educational research, critical multicultural pedagogy, collaborative practice, and community-based learning. My thesis explored international art education, cosmopolitanism, cultural hybridity, and Third Space.
Together, these experiences inform how I observe learners, respond to different cultural contexts, and make decisions about when and how to offer support.
Selected Experience
Art Education and Creative Advising | 2009–present
Studio teaching, bilingual instruction, portfolio advising, and creative project development.
President, NAEA SAIC Student Chapter | 2012–2013
Organized workshops, educational events, and opportunities to share creative and teaching practices.
Design Activism, Igarai, Brazil | 2012
Participated in community engagement, mural painting, and art education.
Cambodian Association of Illinois Project | 2011
Participated in community-based and intergenerational art education.
Taiwan Art Collection Research Project | 2020–2021
Conducted bilingual research, translation, and archive and database organization.
Explore CCH and Start a Conversation
I welcome conversations with educators, researchers, and schools interested in attention, material learning, and learner agency.
I am seeking research partners to help refine and evaluate the observation framework, and school partners to explore how the practice might be adapted to their communities.
Books & Publications | Professional Background on LinkedIn
Contact
cch.art.now@protonmail.com