Chris McCabe is a British poet, visual artist, and educator working between Chiang Mai, Thailand and Da Nang, Vietnam whose interdisciplinary practice explores identity, ecology, and human relationships with the more-than-human world. Selected for the Evolving Identities residency programme at Studio 88 Artist Residency in June 2026, he will further develop Animal Imperatives, an ongoing series of poems and watercolour paintings that reimagines animals as poetic guides for survival, transformation, and coexistence.
McCabe holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, where he graduated with First Class Honours and completed an exchange semester at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He later earned a Master’s degree in Education and International Development from University College London, achieving distinction across all modules. His professional background spans education, research, cultural communication, and international development. Since 2022, he has worked as a Cross-cultural Communications Consultant at BYTEDANCE (TikTok), advising international teams and executives on cultural intelligence, communication strategies, and collaboration across diverse contexts. Prior to this, he lectured in English and International Studies at the University of Da Nang from 2017 to 2025, where he developed innovative curricula, supervised undergraduate research, and contributed to academic publications and grant proposals. He also worked with UNESCO Vietnam, supporting research and advocacy projects related to education access, gender equality, and ethnic minority communities.
Alongside his academic and professional work, McCabe has developed an active artistic and literary practice. He founded the Not Dead Yet Poets community in Da Nang, an ongoing platform for readings, workshops, and collaborative writing that encourages experimental approaches to poetry and challenges conventional ideas of authorship and voice. His practice often moves between text and image, treating both as parallel forms that create tension, ambiguity, and new possibilities for interpretation.
Animal Imperatives, his current body of work, combines poetry and watercolour painting in a series where animals offer strange, humorous, and often unexpectedly sincere instructions on how to live. Blending elements of self-help language, instinct, absurdity, and ecological reflection, the project considers what non-human life might reveal about adaptation and survival in an increasingly unstable world. Rather than using animals symbolically, McCabe positions them as active voices and guides, subtly challenging human-centred perspectives while encouraging empathy and interconnectedness. The work also reflects broader environmental concerns, including habitat destruction, extinction, and climate instability, suggesting attentiveness and coexistence as essential conditions for living within fragile ecosystems.
During the residency, McCabe intends to expand Animal Imperatives into a more experimental and cohesive series. He plans to create new poems and paintings while exploring scale, sequencing, and installation-based approaches that allow text and image to interact more dynamically. Interested in process-led experimentation, he hopes to move beyond polished outcomes and embrace uncertainty as part of the creative process. The residency will provide dedicated time and space to test new directions and deepen the conceptual and visual language of the project.
As someone recently based in Chiang Mai, McCabe is particularly interested in engaging with the region’s artistic communities and ecological landscapes. Northern Thailand’s biodiversity and endemic species offer new inspiration for the development of Animal Imperatives, while the opportunity to exchange ideas with artists from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds aligns closely with his collaborative approach to practice.
Studio 88 Artist Residency offers an ideal context for this development through its focus on dialogue, experimentation, and socially engaged contemporary art. The residency’s commitment to exploring identity and cultural exchange resonates strongly with McCabe’s interdisciplinary practice and research interests. In addition to developing his own work, he hopes to contribute to the residency community through poetry workshops, readings, and collaborative sessions that invite participants to experiment with non-human perspectives, voice, and imaginative transformation.
More about McCabe’s poetry on instagram and McCabe’s visuals on instagram
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