Residency artists and researchers Multidisciplinary art Grace Wong Artist, architect and builder Grace Wong is an artist, architect, builder, and currently a facilitator at the Art Farm Artist’s and Writer’s residency in rural Nebraska, United States. Along with her collaborator, Jennifer Katanyoutanant, Grace will be exploring the themes of food history, game theory, and Finnish food culture. During her residency at the Saari, Grace hopes to be able to research and experience Finland’s food history while designing and prototyping an edible board game with fellow artist and collaborator Jennifer Katanyoutanant. She anticipates play testing the food game with other residents, cooking, sharing stories about food culture, and creating documentation of these flavors and discussions. Trained as both an architect and an artist, Grace’s work interweaves research-driven concept development, the rigorous process of iterative design prototyping, and investigative activities, which may include physical actions, thought exercises, and improvised performance. Her cooking techniques are a reflection her ability to problem solve; utilizing ingredients (sometimes unconventionally) based on their availability to achieve the desired outcomes. Grace Wong uses site-specific architectural installation, participatory performance, and new media as means of creating playful yet insightful dialogues around local culture and memory. She began her career as a designer in professional architecture in 2013, and expanded into facilitating community-oriented construction projects since 2014. She has made design and construction contributions to the experimental net-positive prototype ‘Techstyle Haus’ (featured in New York Times, Archdaily, Inhabitat, Metropolis Magazine) and currently spearheads a number of projects repurposing discarded old farm buildings into studios, accommodations and facilities at the Art Farm Residency in rural Nebraska. 2017 marked a pivotal point in her career when she transitioned out of the architectural office into developing artistic projects in remotes areas such as Death Valley (California), Koh Lon (Thailand), Marquette (Nebraska), and Sôca (Slovenia). Grace is now the Special Operations and Logistics Strategist at Art Farm. She graduated from UC Irvine with a Bachelors in Interdisciplinary Arts and a Masters of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design.