My work explores translations between materials, places, and cultures, and the poetic and spiritual moments revealed in the gaps of translations.
I am primarily a weaver, I work around fiber & textile, installations, and performance. Taking images of nature like landscapes and rocks, and translating them into weavings, embroidery, etc. By manipulating materials, craft technologies like jacquard weavings, and digital embroidery, and constantly evidencing the interplay between nature and materials, I am in search in the materiality of objects, of a state of existence, exist without being present, exist within in-betweenness. Imitation and use of natural materials and textures are the way to build up a space for poetic wandering in my works, to examine a kind of nostalgia toward emptiness. This nostalgia responds to the loss of home and landscape in the context of environmental and cultural migration. I draw inspiration from Chinese ancient philosophies, art, and poetry for the methodologies of examining emptiness and meaninglessness and explore how they are translated into and respond to contemporary context.
My work also responds to philosophical contemplation on the passage of space, time, and life & death. My grandfather was a tailor, he died 30 days before I was born. I was drawn to textiles since I was a child with no one in my family taught me much about them. I am the only textile worker left in my family. In between his life and mine, what and how is it translated?
