I have two homes. One I left behind but never forgotten, the other I found and continue to make. Growing up in Taiwan, a place steeped in dramatic geographic and geologic history, layered with centuries of colonialism, it was a place full of color, smell, noise, texture, and vibrancy, smashed together into a tiny island where I belonged.
At age 13, my family moved to Houston. A new hybridized identity, formed through negotiations with unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and social practices, is marked by where the dominant culture and social framework define and place me. Nevertheless, Houston is where I also belong.
My story reflects the story of many.
The intersection between place and identity within a social and political construct underlies my artistic exploration. I ask: how does identity get formed and integrated into social, cultural, and geographic contexts? How do structural and systemic cultural and political practices help or deter the formation of the sense of home for migrants/immigrants?
I choose to work with paper because it is a material that spans across cultures and times, is malleable, easily destructible, and reconstituted. It mirrors the fragility, adaptability, and re-formation of identities. I cut, tear, shred, crumple, peel, scrape, paint, layer by layer, photographs of and references to people I've known and places I've been. Through this physical act, I deconstruct, dissecting what is known, familiar, and accepted. Then I reconstruct, making new narratives by weaving, stitching, folding, gluing, building, painting, and drawing.