The Rotterdam-based institute of architecture, design, and culture Het Nieuwe Instituut ("The New Institute") announces Aric Chen as its new General and Artistic Director. Currently, Chen is based in Shanghai as the professor and founding Director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University. He will be moving to Rotterdam to begin his position full-time in September 2021 but will assume his new role remotely starting in May.

Chen shared, "it's an enormous privilege to have this chance to build on the ground-breaking, pioneering work that the institute and its staff have done, and to draw on the many well-known strengths of the Dutch cultural and creative communities and their extensive international links in tackling critical questions about our pasts, presents and futures." 

In addition to leading the Curatorial Lab, Chen has also served as the Curatorial Director at the Design Miami fairs in Basel and Miami, Lead Curator and Curator at Large at M+, and several other exhibition programs. 

Recently, Chen's latest work will be exhibited at maat Lisbon this month. X is Not a Small Country – Unravelling the Post-Global Era explores the "current post-global condition by observing at different scales —territories, cities, infrastructures, platforms, bodies, objects—the processes of de-globalization and geopolitical realignment that have, in many cases, been accelerated and distorted in rapidly evolving cycles of flux and revision during the current pandemic."