InterPlay Salon 

InterPlay (Interdisciplinary Playground) is a new quarterly salon series co-organized by VPA Interdisciplinary Arts Programs and the Cantor Arts Center. Designed for faculty, graduate students, and campus collaborators, the series creates a lively space to share work, spark ideas, and build community across disciplines. Each salon features fast-paced presentations alongside playful, interactive experiences that encourage creativity and connection. With time for mingling, networking, and dialogue over light refreshments, InterPlay is a gathering place to discover the diverse and innovative projects happening across campus—and a forum to imagine new ones together.

This salon will feature Kelsey Chen, Janani Balasubramanian, Dr. Karleen Giannitrapani and Jeannie Simms. Presentations will include slides, talks, movement, and an opportunity for hands-on making.

Bios:

Kelsey Chen is a PhD candidate in Modern Thought & Literature at Stanford and a multidisciplinary artist. In her scholarly work, she studies speculative and science fiction grounded in scientific/technical traditions outside of a Western techno-science, focusing on silkpunk and Taoist scientific imaginaries. In her art practice, she is dedicated to trying to picture the occluded or typically insensible forms of phenomena, working across painting, poetry, sculpture, weaving, and book-making.

Janani Balasubramanian is an award-winning immersive director and leading voice in artist-scientist collaboration and transformative immersive experience design. He is the Executive and Artistic Director of Forever Lab. Janani’s work has been featured at cultural and scientific institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Lincoln Center, San Francisco Exploratorium, and the London School of Economics, and most recently at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in collaboration with LeVar Burton. A 2025 Lenore Tawney Fellow, Janani is co-author of Art-Science Undisciplined (University of California Press), a field-defining guide to interdisciplinary innovation. He teaches immersive experience design at the Stanford d.school and serves on the boards of the Djerassi Resident Artist Program and the Journal on Perspectives in Art in Health.

Dr. Karleen Giannitrapani is a nationally recognized expert in co-design and healthcare innovation, particularly improving patient and caregiver experience in moments of vulnerability. She is the Principal Investigator of Forever Lab, Section Chief of Research for Palliative Care, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. She has been an investigator on more than $30 million in competitive federally funded research and has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals such as Medical Care, JAMA Surgery, JAMA Network Open, and Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

Jeannie Simms’ works are rooted in histories of photography and the moving image. Simms produces photographs, videos, and objects in sites with border politics or rapidly changing geopolitical and economic situations, conjuring desires and fantasies from real people in settings of labour and migration--expanding imposed concepts of nation, identity and pleasure. Through an interplay of intercultural collaboration, conversation, and staging, Simms works incorporate performances, interviews, and observational filming to create media works that defy categorization.

All public programs at the Cantor Arts Center are always free! Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority for admission, but walk-ins are very welcome if space allows! RSVP here.

Accessibility Information or Requests

Cantor Arts Center and the VPA Interdisciplinary Arts Programs at Stanford University are committed to ensuring our programs are accessible to everyone. To request access information and/or accommodations for this event, please complete this form at least one week prior to the event: museum.stanford.edu/access.

For questions, please contact disability.access@stanford.edu or Christina Linden, calinden@stanford.edu, 650-497-0340.

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