1. Every profession available in the world fulfills a need, and the contribution of the artist has been one of much controversy. What do you see as the role of the artist, and what kind of standards do you hold yourself to in the process of art-making?
The common thread through all human existence is the search for meaning. And the work that artists produce often seek not to fulfill a physical need, but an emotional and spiritual longing. Every artist has a different take on the role of the artist. In my understanding, art comes from life and an artist is one who looks at life, takes it apart, and sew it back together in a form that brings a new perspective to it. The most difficult part in this process is being candid. It is often easy to fall into the trope of “artist as saviors” when the one regarded as the artist is put on a pedestal for worshipping, while the art produced becomes a commodity for consumption. Commodified/idolized work often lacks the societal value for building communities, making connections, healing wounds and edification. In recognizing this, the standard I would like to hold myself to in the process of artmaking is not to make myself a hero but to empower the participants to be their own artists -- to show how like the art is made by collective effort, our lives are not works of our own for self-consumption, but a gift from a divine hand, and the purpose is for one another.
2. I see that your work encompasses various disciplines from animation, performance art, Chinese traditional calligraphy, to textiles and fashion design, how do you feel being defined as a “sculptor” when most people’s understanding of sculpture as a discipline is “the art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, especially by carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster.” How does your work adhere or divert from this definition of sculpture?
Sculpture dates back to the beginning of human existence but has expanded to encompass multiple disciplines. The act of sculpting could take various forms and dimensions. For example, Chinese Calligraphy is the manifestation of a thought that is formed by the controlled movement of displacing the ink onto the paper over time, and thus, not only is it sculpting a thought, it is also the result of sculpting in time. Thereby, various disciplines does adheres to the common definition of sculpture -- the art of making by some form of action, but in diversion, it is not limited to a physical material by methods of removal, and its form neither needs to be representational nor abstract. The definition of sculpture is interpreted in a more poetic sense of forming with intention that could take shape in any dimension.
3. What is the central message you want to communicate through your artwork?
The central theme that ties my work together is the importance of human connection that comes from the awareness of self and others. Often times, the barriers we set up to protect ourselves are those that hurts us the most. Uncommunicable pain, shame, guilt and sorrows strain us from seeking solace from one another, but art has the potential to be the platform for communication, and the act of making as the source of healing.
Art-making has been the most valuable form of education I had received. In the process of making, one is suspended from the weight of building a facade and given the space to face one’s past with candid self-reflection. Every mistake made becomes an opportunity for learning, and every sorrow is a tool for building empathy. We recognize that we are not alone in the pains we hide. And more than communicating this message through my work, I wish to embody and manifest this transformation in its making.
4. What is the significance of the “community” in your work?
The community is central to the work I produce -- they are not only the beholders of the work, but the makers of the work. They are those which the work grows out of, and continues to live on in. As Paulo Freire expressed in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both”. The artist who does not consider empowerment of the individual within a community will only continue a pattern of exploitation in hijacking a narrative crafted for the audience.
The community art project “Brushstrokes of Life” was a series of paper making and Chinese calligraphy workshops hosted in Oakland Chinatown over the course of a month that concluded in a collective art piece made by the participants of various cultural backgrounds. In carrying this project, I realized that its success not only depended on the invisibility of the “sole artist”, but also the recognition of the artistic power within every individual. When individuals are given the platform to share their own story with those they may not otherwise have an opportunity to connect with, the communal sharing of their past becomes the method and in turn a new community can be built.
5. How has your education in CCA shape you as an artist?
Studying at CCA has been a humbling experience. Being surrounded by fellow artists of various disciplines, and people of various walks of life, I realized that the artist is one who cannot exist outside of the social construct, one has to be deeply involved with the lives of the past, the present and the future. And that the strength of a community comes from its diversity not its uniformity. Confronted with differences taught me to be more empathetic to the various walks of life and the validity of each individual’s artist rationale.
6. What is the significance of using recycled materials in your work? And how does this play into the way you conceptualize your practice?
Prior to coming to CCA, I had already been fascinated with “trash”. Looking at the natural environments void of human inhabitants, nothing is wasted. There is a circular ecosystem in place that sustains itself. Trash is a human reality, a reflection of our inherent flaw and disconnection from nature’s genius design. This profound realization of the “unnaturalness” of producing trash in a finite, linear system of living fueled by our production and consumption of commodities prompted me into the exploration of an alternate that is more familiar to my instincts. This exploration of discarded materials for making art has led me to look into discarded memories, dreams, relationships, communities, heritages and places and their potential significances. To undo the fetish that has been attached to commodities, the act of repurposing and re-presenting them to show an alternative possibility is made to be “work” itself. As Marx wrote of commodity fetish, the exchange of commodities is not just a exchange of products of labor, but of relationships between things and the social characteristics attached, and this is caused by the invisibility of the producers (Marx, 1990).
As an artist, it is a blessing to have a great sense of freedom of expression, but such freedom comes with great responsibility. And I believe that the responsible artist would be considerate of the history and relationships behind the source of material, as well as the the lives involved in the narratives that are presented. Working with discarded material lends itself naturally to the practice of being deeply concerned with memories and history, as the material itself are inherently historical, and engaging with them intrinsically is an act of engaging with the past.