Canto Cutie - Volume 2

When coming up with Our Home, Hong
Kong, you share that “Hong Kong feels
familiar and yet completely unknown
because I have heard so much about it
through my mom, but the last time I
was there was when I was 3.” How do
you “claim” this place in your art? In a
rapidly upward mobile immigrant
culture, many are defined by how
many times they’ve visited their
“homeland” - individuals who get to go
every year may be perceived as more
“Cantonese”. How do you explore Hong
Kong, the geographical and geopolitical
entity in both your identity and work?
I reclaim my Chinese heritage by
making artwork about it. It forces me to
do research on where I’m from, to fully
process my emotions, and really
articulate it for others to see. I felt
strange about “claiming” Hong Kong as
my own because I am technically from
Sichuan. I have also only visited Hong
Kong once, and I barely remember it.
My connection to Hong Kong is more
emotional than physical. The
generational knowledge of that place
has been passed down to me through
my mother, and the Cantonese
communities and spaces that exist in
New York.
In my work “Our Home, Hong Kong”, I
am exploring Hong Kong through the
lens of nostalgia for a place that doesn’t
exist. My mom is nostalgic for the Hong
Kong that she used to know growing up.
I am nostalgic for the place my mom has
described to me, and for a place where I
might feel at home. Both of our ideas of
Hong Kong are likely very different from
what the physical place is like, but we
both still claim that emotional
connection to it.
In Our Home, Hong Kong, you depict
faces and places, but also an emphasis
on transportation. Can you talk more
about why you choose to include the
concept of transportation in that
particular work? Since the pieces are
easily removable, how is it meant to be
explored or used by others?