[3] In 2008, he relocated to China,[6] where he served as a professor and the founding director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai.
[4] From 2012 to 2019, Chen was the founding lead curator for design and architecture at Hong Kong's visual culture museum, M+.
[2] In 2018, Chen became the first curatorial director of the Design Miami events in Florida and Basel, Switzerland.
[9] In 2021, he was appointed general and artistic director of Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture, based in Rotterdam.
[12][10] Chen has frequently contributed to publications such as The New York Times, Wallpaper*, and Architectural Record.