Championing local artists; channeling global perspectives.

Named one of 2023’s Culture Shifters by HuffPost and hailed as a “polymath wave-maker” and “a pioneer of art that is interactive, collaborative, and as much fun for viewers as it is for artists,” Jenny Lam is a critically and publicly acclaimed award-winning self-taught multidisciplinary artist, artist agent, independent curator, writer, troublemaker, [pre-pandemic] globetrotting polyglot, former precocious child, current child at heart, INTJ, and all-around nerd.

The Chicago-born Chinese American daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, she graduated from Columbia University in New York City, where she served as the President of Postcrypt Art Gallery, a student-run organization that served as the only space dedicated to the exhibition of undergraduate art at Columbia, providing young artists and curators with opportunities regardless of their involvement with the school’s Visual Arts Department. After earning her BA, she returned to the Windy City, where she founded Artists on the Lam in 2011. The site for this enterprise, which garnered an international following, was named “Best Local Visual Arts Blog” in the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago issue.

With a mission to make art accessible and a vision to bring people together, she has independently curated interactive shows like the groundbreaking—and rule-breaking—exhibition I CAN DO THAT, which featured artists from all over the world and was named the audience choice for “Best Art Exhibit” in the 20th anniversary edition of NewCity’s Best of Chicago issue in 2012. Such imaginative exhibitions not only challenged guests to think beyond common misconceptions about art and step outside their comfort zones, but also broke barriers, built community, inspired people to see the world anew, and demonstrated that art is for everyone.

Her own art has been exhibited at places like the Chicago Cultural Center and the Chicago Public Library. A lifelong artist who has been drawing for as long as she can remember, she is the 1st Prize Winner of the National Park Service’s Centennial Project. She is also the creator of Dreams of a City, an ongoing-since-2008 city-wide participatory public art and mapping project for which she was awarded the Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Exploring the effects of geographical boundaries while finding connections, amplifying different voices, and

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