[Written April 29, 2019; Documentation of the exhibition can be seen at Flushing Constructions and Zines]
This body of work interprets the built environment and investigates the relationships between cultural identity and place in Flushing, Queens through cognitive mapping, oral history, textiles and mixed media. I focus primarily on Asian American community and identity, exploring what they are composed of and how they are materially and geographically anchored. The work seeks to ground that which floats between nations and drifts into eddies along the mainstream. The results are inescapably subjective, rooted in my personal experiences and desires to belong both in the immediate community and in the national narrative. At the same time, I reach for “objective,” external information as I incorporate the perspectives of others and investigate collective cultural consciousness.
My mixed media work involves various combinations of textiles, photography, household and found material, drawing and painting. The work is based on photos that I take in Flushing of houses, vegetable gardens, mini malls and new developments, and spaces in between or outside the usual paths. Images are reinterpreted in collage, sketching out and mirroring a kind of Asian American visual aesthetic of repurposing, pragmatism and frugalness that characterizes many of these spaces. Much of the material is saved from food packaging since food is one of the easiest ways to navigate the neighborhood in the absence of relationship.
In projects that directly engage community members, the goal is to platform the skills and knowledge of others so that people can learn from each other and make new connections. In 2018 I co-facilitated an oral history quilting project with Queens Memory where people were invited to exchange different textile-based skills as they related to family/cultural traditions and the effect of immigration on those practices. Currently I am initiating small group walks where we bring each other to different points of interest, share our perspectives and strategies to slow down, observe and reflect. The content of each walk is documented in booklets while more data is being collected.
All these projects are part of ongoing efforts to articulate and build community and explore place-based attachment in a globalized world, establishing groundwork for thoughtful collective action.