My name is Chaya a.k.a Choy, and I'm a multidisciplinary artist based primarily online in Montreal, Canada.

My work spans fiber arts, photography, game design, web development, and pixel art. Coloured by memories of both nostalgia and trauma, my pieces reflect the influences early online media (web 1.0-2.0), digital folklore, and childhood poverty have had on my life.

With my maternal grandfather being a self-taught computer engineer, we were fortunate to always have access to refurbished technology. I spent holidays playing Sierra Entertainment games on his lap. Later, I spent my time after school drawing in MS Paint and building small HTML projects.

With childhood unsupervised access to the family computer came reward but also great risk. The experience of CSA led me to withdraw and pursue a career in youth mental healthcare and crisis work, completing a Specialisation in Psychology from Concordia University. For many years, online activities took a backseat to my work in this field.

As an immunocompromised person, the SARS Cov-2 pandemic made life challenging, and I returned to programming-as-art as a means of coping with the isolation of being high risk as public precautions began to fade. This time, I immersed myself in small online communities to nuture the memories of comfort associated with my early years on the web.

While the pandemic has taken a lot from me accessibility-wise, it has also allowed me to find my nook, to rekindle a long-lost passion for a space of comfort and limitless creativity. In a way, this pilgrimage back to programming has been a kind of virtual homecoming.