Estella Tse sits with plants in a garden nursery.
What virtual stories are you bringing into real life?
Estella Tse is a Virtual & Augmented Reality Creative Director and Artist. She integrates emerging technologies and visual storytelling into a new art form. She inspires new ways to connect, educate, and build empathy with her creative innovation work.
"Innovation is challenging – exceptionally so – you constantly have to work with and seek out exceptional people. What makes Estella so exceptional is that she does not simply seek to create, a feat in itself, she seeks to push the boundaries of creation itself, and what’s possible to be created in the process.” offers Charlie (Amber) Goelst, Innovation Strategist at Intel Corporation.
Tse has been an artist-in-residence with Google, Adobe, Snapchat, Cartoon Network Studios, performs and speaks internationally. Her work has been featured on Forbes, CNet, The Australian, and more. She draws her inspiration from lived human experiences, nature, and the cosmos. Forbes sat down with Estella Tse to talk about new technology and her career path.
Goldie Chan: What has your career path been?
Estella Tse: I’m born and raised in Oakland, CA. My parents are immigrants from Hong Kong. Since I was a kid, I’ve been excited about art, computers, and making a difference in the world. My first bachelor’s degree was in Sociology (UCLA, 2006) with a minor in LGBTQ Studies, I had a six-year career as a full-stack web developer, and my second bachelor’s in Illustration (Art Center College of Design, 2016) with a focus on entertainment design.
My path has been far from conventional! Especially for a first-generation, American-born Chinese daughter. I had to prove my ability to get a great education and work in a “successful” field before I felt capable of pursuing art.
There’s no set path for becoming a creative innovator. Even when I built websites for fun around 1996 (age 11), nobody knew what career paths would come out of that medium. We just created and experimented. Working in innovation is simultaneously thrilling, confusing, and very difficult when there aren’t clear answers.
I’m grateful to have mentors to look to, to research and draw from many disciplines, and to trust my own abilities, too.
Chan: What has been your favorite project that you’ve worked on?
Tse: Most recently, I was brought onto Intel’s Innovation team to research large-scale Virtual Production film shoots, to understand and brainstorm how storytelling in entertainment will evolve with this grand technology. I’ve been hired lately for my big-thinking brain (not just my painting skills), and it’s been lovely! I worked closely with Innovation Strategist and creative visionary, Charlie (Amber) Goelst, who has one of the most brilliant minds in innovation. We collaborated with USC’s Entertainment Technology Center to research Amazon’s 34,000-square-foot virtual production stage, featuring director c. Craig’s FATHEAD!
Chan: What elements create a sense of connection and empathy with an audience?
Tse: Telling an authentic, genuine, vulnerable story. And not with the goal to garner approval, likes, popularity. To be vulnerable is to share something intimate, with no promises of how it’ll be received. Some things land, some things don’t.
For me, I try my best to tell stories that are authentic to me. I don’t know how people will respond to it, but I hope that my pieces speak to being human and how hard that can be. I don’t have millions of likes and followers – what matters more to me is the parent who comes to me after a show and says, “I’m so glad there’s someone like you for my daughter to look up to.” To me, that’s everything.
Having a strong design background really helps to convey your message visually, too. I’ve been privileged to learn from Disney veteran art directors, and learned a lot about the visual language. These are skills that can all be learned.
Chan: What are you currently working on?
Tse: I’m focused on balance right now. It’s easy to overwork ourselves. I’ve had very trying years that have forced me to slow down drastically and reassess how I relate to my work.
I’m beyond ecstatic to announce: I am a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford this year! I am working with TORCH, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. My Sociology + Innovation + Creativity brains have been hard at work, designing an exhibition for this Spring/Summer. More news to come!
For balance, I’m entering my third year at the Portland Nursery as a retail specialist! I work everyday with incredible geniuses who know so much about horticulture, nature, plants, the chemistry of soils, pollinators and insects, how to create a thriving ecosystem, and more. I learn everyday from my colleagues and directly from Nature herself. This job has been so healing for my mental health and my soul. It balances the grind and hustle that’s required as an independent innovation artist.
I’m also working on creating a passive income stream, more in-line with traditional illustrators’ paths of licensing images for merchandise. (Learned from “Passive Income for Creatives” by buddy Matt Vandeputte.)
I know. I have three full-time jobs. I really am trying to balance!
Chan: What is a life lesson you’d like to share with a younger version of yourself?
Tse: Learning to believe in yourself will be the single hardest thing you’ll ever learn to do. No one teaches you how. When both of your cultures say that girls and women are supposed to be submissive, quiet, invisible, agreeable, conforming, pleasant, obedient, subservient – you grow up believing this must be true of you. And if you don’t fit in that mold, then there must be something wrong with you.
In my heart and in every fiber of my soul, I knew I wasn’t that. I’m meant to be different. And the more I shed those societal expectations, the more I become the best version of myself, and the more positively impactful and relatable my work becomes.
To be an artist is not easy. Once you begin living life authentically to your true self, it becomes impossible to go back. But the gifts are deep, meaningful, and so fulfilling.
Chan: What change would you like to see in your industry?
Tse: I’d love to see more artists and designers in discussions about future technologies. We’re trained to think outside of the box and to contest the norm. We often get brought on for a project or two and there isn’t a sustained relationship in innovation.
There’s a heavy controversy about AI-generated art, whose databases are pulling from copyright images and works. More about this here and here. Artists should have been included in the creation of those AI-generators. As our technology develops, we need to discuss the ethics and implications of what we’re making.
Chan: What brands would you love to partner with?
Tse: Any brands who have extensive reach, who are interested in making the world a better place through creativity + technology with ethics and environmental conservation. I’d love to eventually do a project with the United Nations. I’m a fan of Wieden+Kennedy’s work. And I’d love to do a high-profile project in my hometown of Oakland. My door’s always open for inquiries. :)
Chan: Any last branding or career advice for this year?
Tse: Remember to lead with your values and your heart. Remember there’s more to life than work work work. Take time to rest. Put away your devices and go on long 1-on-1 walks with your friends. Ask deep questions. Find meaning in the day-to-day. Treat yourself to something simple and pleasant everyday. Indulge in too much ice cream. Enjoy playground swings again. Sink your toes into the dirt. Lay on grass and stare up at the trees and sky. Plunge into the ocean. Do what moves your heart and soul. And don’t take life too seriously. <3
