Chien-An Yuan
Musician & Interdisciplinary Artist
Chien-An Yuan is a Chinese-American musician, educator, and interdisciplinary artist based in Ann Arbor, MI. While music is his main medium, his talent reaches across disciplines as a filmmaker, photographer, and graphic designer. He runs 1473, a record label specializing in improvisation, electronics, and collaboration. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, and Huffington Post.
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Growing up not seeing much Asian American representation in the arts, he’s now paving the way for more representation as a co-founder of IS/LAND, a performance collaborative of AA&PI artists, and the founder of KYLYN AAPI Arts & Culture Festival, an annual art festival in Ann Arbor, MI.
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This interview was edited for length and clarity. It took place on March 12, 2025.
Credit: Elana KH Photography
Q: Tell me about your journey to becoming a musician and artist.
CY: I grew up in the Ohio suburbs. I had an older brother who was really into music and always shared with me the records he collected. That’s how I fell in love with music. For undergrad, I majored in Cultural Studies, which my parents were okay with because they thought I could go the academic professor route.
But one day, a friend gave me a bunch of pirated creative software, including Adobe, Photoshop, and Sonic Studio. That transformed my life: I just started learning everything myself. Even now, I hold to the belief that art education should be self-taught because there’s no standard way to do art.
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But I was still on a more traditional career path. Then I got in a car accident. It was a wake-up call for me that made me ask: “What do I really want to do with my life?”
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I moved to Chicago, took a minimum wage job at Planned Parenthood and pursued music. With my minimum wage job, I was able to leave work at work and be laser-focused on music in my free time. I spent a lot of time alone, experimenting with different sounds and eventually worked my way up. I founded my own experimental electronic record label, 1473.
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All my other mediums (graphic design, photography, filmmaking) were born out of my music career. For example, if I wanted to make a music video and wasn’t able to hire someone, I’d do it myself — but I wanted it to be good. So I taught myself graphic design, photography, and videography.
Q: How did your parents react to you becoming an artist?
CY: If you ever want to see your parents look at you like a lunatic, tell them you’re going to pursue music and work at an abortion clinic. They just were at a loss — it strained our relationship for years, and it took a lot of work to get them to have any understanding of me.
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Giving them grandkids definitely helped. Even now, we don’t talk too much about the work I do in art or community organizing. It’s safer to just stick to the kids. Part of that sacrifice is keeping them at a distance where I don’t have to reexamine what I do through their lens. At some point, you just have to shrug and learn you can’t change where your elders come from. I'm okay with them not knowing fully what I do to preserve the peace.
"Part of that sacrifice is keeping them at a distance where I don’t have to reexamine what I do through their lens. At some point, you just have to shrug and learn you can’t change where your elders come from."
That We Walk performance by IS/LAND, AA&PI performance collaborative co-founded by Chien-An Yuan
Q: As a community organizer and mentor to aspiring Asian-American artists now, what common struggles do you notice?
CY: Many Asian-American kids have parents who raise them to appreciate Chinese philosophy, art, and music. But then, when they want to go into it, their parents tell them it’s a waste of time.
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The creative life is difficult for second-generation children of immigrants because it’s so hard to believe your art has value. In America, art is not valued but consumed. There’s no funding for art but people just expect it to always be there. People call themselves content creators instead of painters. That puts more focus on the product than the process. So when art isn’t valued in your family or country, it’s a brave choice to say to yourself: “What I do matters. It’s important to me and hopefully someone else out there.” You just have to believe in the process: starting at A and knowing there is no Z.
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There’s this weird thing with Asian-Americans needing permission, whether it’s from their parents or themselves. Like: “I don’t know if I should talk about this” — but why not?
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When I meet artists who don’t come from immigrant backgrounds, they have so much confidence. But I’ve noticed that oftentimes, their work lacks depth — it reflects their emotional life, but there isn’t a deep reflection on the process. Comparatively, immigrant artists know what a struggle it is to choose to make art and what a privilege that is in the first place. That deep wrestle is reflected in their art.
"The creative life is difficult for second-generation children of immigrants because it’s so hard to believe your art has value. In America, art is not valued but consumed ... So when art isn’t valued in your family or country, it’s a brave choice to say to yourself: “What I do matters. It’s important to me and hopefully someone else out there.”"​
The Ann Arbor District Library's Coolidge Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry co-created by 1473, the record label Chien-An Yuan founded
Q: How has art transformed the way you engage with the world?
CY: I believe that art can save lives. It saved mine. I don’t know where I’d be mental health-wise without art. Especially in this political moment, art is the lens that helps people process what’s going on — it’s not reading 10,000 books on fascism.
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For example, I keep coming back to the song “Quartet for the End of Time” by Oliver Messiaen. He wrote it when he was in a Nazi concentration camp as an act of resistance and hope. Messiaen knew he would die, but that this piece would survive. What I love about music is that you can read as many books as you want about a song, but when you’re actually listening to it, it’s a spiritual experience that’s unexplainable.
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It reminds me: policies come and go. But art is what survives — it’s what makes life meaningful.
Q: Tell me more about your process. What's your day to day like?
CY: Something that’s very undervalued in American culture is solitude. It’s been essential to my process. When I was on the come-up in Chicago, living alone in a studio, solitude gave me that laser focus to pursue music, try new things, and make mistakes. It’s why I am where I am now.
Now, I have a wife and 2 kids. I can’t start anything when they’re awake, so my art practice is from 11PM - 3AM/4AM every day.
During those hours, I start by playing some familiar piano pieces just to get my brain focused. Then I get to work on whatever project I’m working on — whether it’s sound, film, or photography. What I love about sound is that it’s deeply rooted in memory. It never sounds like what we remember, but how we remember.
Q: What led you to do some of your community organizing work, such as launching KYLYN AA&PI Arts & Culture Festival?
CY: KYLYN Fest started with a simple question: What does Asian-American art look like? I had a hard time answering that, even though I’m pretty tapped into the art scene. If you ask most people that question, they’ll talk about traditional Asian art, not Asian-American. I realized there was a gap. So my goal with KYLYN Fest is to explore what Asian American art and culture is and celebrate the amazing work Midwest Asian American artists are doing. 2025 will be the 2nd year of KYLYN Fest — made possible by the Ann Arbor District Library.
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People ask me what KYLYN means — it’s the name of a 1979 Japanese jazz punk album. So much AA&PI programming has a dragon or egg tart as the symbol (which is fine — I love egg tarts!) but I wanted to do something different.
KYLYN Fest 2025 Poster
Q: What does being an Asian American artist mean to you?
CY: Growing up hearing: “Just be your authentic self!”, my response was always: “It’s not that simple.” As an Asian-American kid, I was societally conditioned to put people at ease: whether that’s code-switching with white people or striving to please my parents.
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For me, being an Asian American artist means unlearning that programming and leaning into the uncomfortable. For example, I co-founded AA&PI performance collective IS/LAND. We’re working on a piece about Angel Island Immigration Station and the poems carved into its walls by Chinese immigrant detainees. It’s a deeply uncomfortable thing to confront, but it’s important for us to preserve and reflect on.
Q: What's your advice for aspiring artists?
CY: Make sure that what you’re doing matters to you. You’re going to reach a point where you realize nobody cares. Not everyone will see the value in what you do. Some people will be openly dismissive, some people will want to care but not understand. You just have to pursue your vision because you believe you can communicate something to someone.
You’re not going to change everyone’s life. Some artists (like pop stars) are gifted at mass communication, which is often seen as the pinnacle of success, but not all artists are like that.
I’ve performed to sold-out rooms and rooms of four people. The numbers don’t matter. You need to know — who do you want to reach?
"I’ve performed to sold-out rooms and rooms of four people. The numbers don’t matter. You need to know — who do you want to reach?"
Chimera performance by IS/LAND, AA&PI performance collaborative co-founded by Chien-An Yuan