Mengxi “Althea” Rao was born and raised in Beijing, and has lived and worked in Shanghai, Tokyo and Philadelphia. A journalist before self-identifying as an artist, she explores storytelling through different mediums: embodied interactive design; fiction or conceptual essayistic video; immersive narrative experiences. Her works decontextualize themes from popular political discourse, and engage viewers’ personal experience. Althea is a 2016 Flaherty Film Seminar Fellow. Her experimental documentary White Mushrooms, Black Earth has screened at festivals and theaters both in Europe and US. Her interactive multi-media performance Touch: the Dance debuted in Fleisher Art Memorial and was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and was accepted into art and tech conventions in Prague and Brighton, UK. She recently finished her MFA thesis film Three Seasons, and was accepted into 2018 Cannes Court Metrage. She is currently working on two narrative film scripts and a large scale interactive video sculpture.

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