Title: Pilgrimage of Light – Blending the Cosmos and Earth with Artist Mark Chen

Event Info: 
Please join us on Wednesday, August 12th, 2026, for a truly unique and visually stunning presentation. We are honored to welcome Mark Chen, a renowned multimedia artist, photographer, educator, and author, whose work sits at the breathtaking intersection of art and astronomy.

About Our Speaker:
Mark Chen centers his practice on photography. He invents and repurposes tools as he pushes media boundaries, devising new processes that make possible the execution of his concepts.

About the Talk:
In this presentation, Mark will share his extraordinary ongoing project, Pilgrimage of Light, which explores the "mysterious coexistence of the universe, Earth and people". To bring this vision to life, Mark travels to hard-to-reach wilderness areas to project galactic images, altering landscapes while he photographs them.

The production of this series received a boost from his residency at Grand Canyon National Park in 2023 and 2024. His 2025 engagements include an artist-in-residence at Music@Menlo in California, exhibitions at the Write Gallery at Texas A&M University, Hong Kong Art Week, and the International Art and Science Museum in Texas. His work was also featured in the article "Where Space and Time Merge" in National Geographic Magazine's March 2025 issue.

Join us for an unforgettable evening as Mark Chen shares the stories behind his pilgrimages, his unique technological inventions, and how his art allows him—and us—to feel "at home" in the universe.

Clear skies!