Digital Narratives Studio

From The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Vennes Cheng explores archives as dynamic knowledge systems that can interrupt linear histories and inherited structures of memory. Drawing on art history and media archaeology, her work reimagines archives as experimental spaces for producing alternative forms of knowledge.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, Vennes will invite participants to rethink archival narration as a way to reimagine technologies and histories, and to open up more equitable and livable futures.
Stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

✨ Let’s meet Cindy Anh Nguyen from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Drawing on feminist thought, sociotechnical histories, and critical disability studies, Cindy Anh Nguyen asks: how do we live, research, and learn ethically in a time of overlapping crises — from AI acceleration to climate change and global inequalities? Her work rethinks care not as a soft solution or added burden, but as a critical framework that recenters how and why we engage in scholarly and everyday practices.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, she will invite participants to explore how care can reshape research, pedagogy, and collective life in more intentional and livable ways.

Stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

We are very excited to announce that the IACS 2026 cohort is now full. We are inspired by the 50 participants who will join us in Hong Kong and thank everybody who sent in their interest and applications to join us.

Please note that if you have not been invited to complete admission procedures by now, it means that we were unfortunately not able to include you in this year's cohort. With more than 275 applications, we had to make some difficult calls that centered on who we thought we would be able to serve best with the resources and the faculty that we have.

✨ We again extend our heartfelt thanks to all who applied. We hope you continue to engage with the IACS community in other ways in the future.

🔗 Learn more about the Summer School:
https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

✨ Let’s meet Lisa Yuk-ming Leung from Lingnan University, Hong Kong

At the IACS Summer School 2026, Lisa will bring over a decade of research on the struggles and agencies of South Asian minority youth in Hong Kong. Focusing on the livability and narrativity of racial minorities, Lisa’s work examines the tactics and storytelling practices through which minority communities articulate forms of racial and labour subjectivity within Hong Kong’s social fabric.

We look forward to the conversations her session will open this summer! Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!

Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

From The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jia Tan explores the intersections of feminism and environmentalism in Asia. While both fields have received significant attention, her work asks why eco activism in the region is so rarely examined through a feminist lens.

By developing the idea of diverse activism, Jia Tan proposes a feminist approach to social movements—one that is deeply connected to everyday politics and that questions both conventional definitions of activism and the conditions under which activism is suppressed.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, Jia Tan will invite participants to rethink activism through the lens of care, environment, and everyday life.

✨ Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

We can’t wait for Sonia Wong and creative approaches to inspire participants this summer!

Sonia Wong believes social change isn’t found in revolution, but in relationships of care. Her work explores how even the most mundane encounters can be sites of tenderness and mutual care. Through her performance and installation work, writer-artist-activist Sonia Wong reveals the hidden layers of overlooked exchanges in urban life, showing how we can intervene and create spaces for moments of connection and care.
At the IACS Summer School 2026, Sonia will guide participants in exploring how art, activism, and everyday practices can nurture livable worlds through care.

✨Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

✨ Let’s meet our faculty, Nishant Shah, Director of Digital Narratives Studio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK

Through the lens of livability, Nishant encourages us to rethink digital spaces and technologies as sites where care comes first, enabling conditions to live, thrive, and flourish. At the IACS Summer School 2026, Nishant will guide participants in reimagining how digital practices can support more caring, livable, and aspirational futures.

We can’t wait for his insights to spark rich conversations this summer. Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!

Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Let’s meet our summer school faculty, Jian Lin from The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK!

Jian’s work explores how digital platforms and algorithmic infrastructures are reshaping culture, labor, and everyday life, within and beyond China’s cultural economies. Through research on platforms and creator culture, he traces how technologies redistribute opportunity and risk across online and offline communities.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, Jian will invite participants to critically examine what kinds of social relations, cultural commons, and working conditions do platform technologies make possible? And how might we imagine more inclusive, sustainable, and accountable technological futures?

✨ Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

Let’s meet our summer school faculty Marty Miller!

From the City University of Hong Kong, Marty studies how we interpret images that appear without an author — from found photographs and AI-generated visuals to everyday screenshots. Through exhibitions and learning design, he creates shared spaces where groups develop language for what images leave unsaid, while also examining the generative systems that attempt to interpret them for us.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, participants will bring their own screen collections, compare competing AI readings, and collaboratively revise the categories together. We look forward to the conversations this workshop will spark this summer.

✨Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

Let’s meet Feng-Mei Heberer from New York University!

Feng-Mei investigates how migration, flight, and diaspora give rise to different forms of storytelling—practices that make the present more livable. Her work explores listening carefully, sitting with stories, and collapsing linear cartographies, opening space for voices and experiences that often exist beyond conventional frameworks.

At the IACS Summer School 2026, she will invite participants to explore how these narrative practices take shape across art, activism, and everyday media, and how stories can shape more livable worlds.

Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more from: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah

SCAM ALERT

We are aware of scam emails circulating that falsely claim to be from our Society and request help or money. Please do not respond or make any payments.

Please also be aware that these emails may falsely claim to be from our Chair or other Society members.

All official communications will be sent from our official email address. For 2026 summer school–related matters, emails will only come from official .cuhk university accounts.

If you are unsure about the authenticity of any message, please verify with us directly.

We can’t wait for SaeHim Park to bring her insights and guidance to participants, sparking conversations on care, livability, and media.

From The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK, SaeHim Park examines the ethics and aesthetics of contemporary visual and media cultures surrounding sexual violence. Her work asks how practices of care are mobilized—and strained—when trauma is circulated, mediated, and commodified. Her research critically highlighted both the possibilities and limits of care as a mode of historical narration, ethical engagement, and collective responsibility in the historical present.

Please stay tuned for more updates from IACS Summer School 2026!
Learn more from: https://digitalnarratives.com.cuhk.edu.hk/articles/2026-iacs-summer-school

Nishant Shah