Hsin-Ya Chen is a street photographer based in Taiwan. She is also a registered nurse and educator with over seven years in the field. Her photographs carry a sense of vicarious nostalgia, wistful longing, and documentary humor, evoking an intertwining of melancholy and affection through both her pictures and her words. She is drawn to the multifaceted surprises found in nameless days, seeing memories like pebbles collected along a river; she picks them up, frames them, and uses text to carve out the stories they tell.
Originally self-taught while documenting her university choir, Hsin-Ya’s practice evolved significantly after moving to New York City, where the metropolis transformed photography into an extension of how she observes and comprehends human connection. Her time as a nurse trained her to read people's body language and to be close to strangers in exposed moments without intruding. It is the same attention she carries onto the street. Practicing every day and attending workshops and talks, she gradually developed her own visual language. Today, she carries that same curiosity, seeking to understand how the world fits together, or even how it doesn’t.
Hsin-Ya’s work has been exhibited at City Island Museum in the Bronx, in multiple group shows across Brooklyn galleries, and featured online by Leica Camera USA. She is guided by the philosophy, “gamer at heart: go through it, not around it,” and stays committed to facing the discomfort of life's transitions to find the dignity hidden inside them.