021: Stefie Gan - Creator of Joss Lotuses to Grandma

Stefie Gan studied architecture at Barnard College, Columbia University, and drew from her expertise in spatial awareness as she used environmental metaphors in her films. As an MFA graduate at the University of Southern California, Stefie has experience working with researchers and scientists at the USC Wrigley Institute of Environmental Studies where she made an animated video depicting Life at the Rocky Intertidal Zone and the importance of plankton to marine life. Her award-winning film, Plastic Ecosystem, using found plastic objects to address the issue of climate change, received second place at the Oscar-qualifying Odense Film Festival. Her work addressing Asian Hate during COVID was also featured by the Getty Museum. Stefie has made an animated holiday video for Barnard, a reading campaign for Scholastic, colored frames for Oscar nominee Bill Plympton’s latest feature film Revengeance, worked on a Curious George documentary, and drew and animated for the Dow Jones Media Group, home of the Wall Street Journal. Stefie is the first in her family to go to college, and it’s important to her to bring her cultural heritage to her drawings and films.