Red Envelope Project

This Lunar New Year, give the gift of protection and prosperity and ward off Sui. Artists Cinthia Chen and Tina Hanaé Miller take the origin myth behind the red envelope and reimagine it for this moment. At a time when visiting in person, as per custom, is unsafe, they’ve created an interactive red envelope exchange for our A4 community that goes both ways: old to young, and young to old.

If you received a red envelope in the mail, use your QR code or access the experience on this page to immerse yourself in a audio-visual telling of the mythology of Sui. Or, just enter the experience and create your own red envelope at home with printable red envelopes created by the artists themselves.

This program is a part of A4’s Lunar New Year Celebration: Year of the Ox. Learn more about the programs here.

Cinthia Chen (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in theater and film. She was a SUITE/Space artist at Mabou Mines, Fresh Ground Pepper BRB Resident Artist, Creators Collective’s “Artist Elevating Immigrant Narratives” and is currently participating in the A4 Virtual Residency Program. Most recently she was a Theater Mitu Hybrid Arts Lab fellow, which is a program dedicated to supporting trans, non-binary, and femme identified artists working at the intersection of performance and technology. She was also a guest artist for Theater Mitu’s development of their upcoming show UTOPIA. Cinthia also works as a prop designer and video designer in theater. She was recently recognized for her work in projections at La MaMa’s Design Fest. Highlights include serving as the festival prop designer for Corkscrew Theater Festival and video designer for Notes from the Basement (Dixon Place), Chinese Opera and a Modern Drama (Lenfest Center for the Arts), The Yellow Wallpaper (IRT Theater). In film, she has worked as a documentary and narrative editor for independent artists as well as production companies such as NextRound Productions, Five Sisters Productions, and ARRI China.

Tina-Hanaé Miller (she/her) is a writer and composer, creating work for experimental theater, television, and AR/VR. After writing the soundtrack for the Augmented Reality piece, Heisenberg, which premiered on the High Line, she was in residence at Sundance Institute for their Theatre Lab, composing music for an immersive, astrophysics-based piece, The Gift, which previewed at Under the Radar Festival. She was in residence at Theater Mitu, The Public Theater, produced music for POE: The Musical, and collaborated with Splice on a sample pack. As a musician, she has performed at the Brooklyn Museum, The Echo, The Imperial, U Street Music Hall, The Sinclair, and the Music Hall of Williamsburg, among others. She was the touring keyboardist for Cruel Youth on their sold-out international tour supporting Atlantic Records’ artist Kiiara. More recently, as Hanaé, she collaborated with artist Umico Niwa on a music video for her solo debut, All Of This, on ecological disaster and grief.