Qianxuan Chen Wins Inaugural Student Research Design Award

Artist and designer Qianxuan Chen (MDes 2025 / BFA 2023) is the recipient of the inaugural Student Research Design Award from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design Research Ethics Board (ECU-REB).

Qianxuan was awarded for her project Embracing Motherhood: No Little Thing, a participatory, multi-sensory design research project exploring the complexities of maternal experiences, including pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum realities.

“This project is part of a transformation phase for me. Combining art with design was a new approach,” Qianxuan says. “The award has encouraged me to keep working on this and to use this new approach to keep doing my research. I feel very appreciative and recognized by the community.”

The annual award recognizes the innovative work of student researchers who balance research ethics standards with compelling design in research recruitment, consent or data-collection materials.

“Research ethics protocols are meant to ensure participants understand what they’re signing up for and why, and that their rights and well-being are respected. However, established conventions in research materials can be very inaccessible and ineffective,” says ECU Professor Alla Gadassik, current chair of the ECU-REB.

“How many people skip to the end of a long boilerplate consent form without reading or understanding the information? At ECU, students are uniquely positioned to tackle the challenge of designing research materials that promote participant engagement and understanding. This award recognizes the value that art and design approaches bring to established research paradigms.”

The juried award is open to all ECU student researchers working with human participants. This year’s submissions included graduate and undergraduate student projects, as well as materials developed by students through research assistant positions.

The 2025 jury was chaired by REB graduate student board member Natalie Chiovitti and included ECU faculty and REB board member Daniel Wildberger, Health Design Lab research coordinator Otilia Spantulescu, and REB coordinator Lois Klassen.

Embracing Motherhood reimagines the exhibition space as a site of participatory research. The project’s graduate adviser was designer and Associate Professor Hélène Day Fraser.

Qianxuan developed an exhibition that merged ceramic and glass sculpture, sound, and tactile interactions, evoking bodily impressions of childbirth and maternity. The exhibition invited emotional and sensory responses from visitors, encouraging them to form their own associations. A carefully integrated survey prompted visitors to reflect on dominant representations of maternity and their own experiences.

The jury was impressed by Qianxuan’s use of diverse approaches and careful engagement with her public participants, noting the project “evokes a sense of care, responsibility, and trustworthiness.”

“The researcher took risks in asking passersby about their relationship to motherhood and the objects on display, but the research methods also demonstrated a high degree of respect for participants’ contributions and privacy,” the jury writes in their citation. “The exhibition provided a wonderful immersive experience. It is amazing to experience this kind of integration of visual art and design research methodologies.”

Qianxuan says Embracing Motherhood stems from a childhood experience of finding herself in an information vacuum regarding issues around motherhood and reproduction. The project represents years of research aimed not only at filling that void but at reducing social and cultural stigmas preventing such knowledge from wider availability.

“It’s a chance for me to educate myself as well to attract people to understand this topic,” Qianxuan says. “I want to provide educational resources to my audience and change the narrative about motherhood as well.”

Visit our website to learn more about the ECU-REB.

Find Qianxuan on Instagram and LinkedIn for more on her work.