Still smiling is a video installation that captures a common phenomenon of social awkwardness – the polite smile – and focuses in on it, without extraneous factors.
Influenced by being in-between cultures, I often find myself in situations that I do not completely understand, but yet still must keep up appearances. Over the years, I have mastered this smile, and have successfully feigned full understanding to family members and other viewers alike. Although well-intentioned at first, Still Smiling exhibits the tension that inevitably appears as the muscle strain seeps through my face, and body language dissolves politeness into honesty.
DISPLACE
Sand paper, vinyl stencil
Variable
Displace is a text piece that visualizes my interior reaction to a moment or a situation of social awkwardness. Displace arises from the words, “space” and “place” and plays upon how language occupies both.
The most poignant example in my life is a family dinner. All at once, family members will talk to each other in Taiwanese, address the waiters in Cantonese, discuss money (and other private affairs) in Thai, and then attempt to include the kids in English, as a good-natured gesture. Despite the intentions, I often feel confused, awkward, and overwhelmed by the multitude of inaccessible conversation swirling around me.
I feel displaced a level below my family, unable to understand all the nuances because my Mandarin skills are not on par with the rest of my family.
‘Displace’ is the visual representative of those feelings – the word ‘Displace’ has been sanded into the wall – it does not appear on the same surface level as other pieces in the gallery, but must fend for itself, sanded into the wall.
If you haven’t already, our BFA show will be up today and tomorrow at the White Box. The show ends on June 25th and 6 PM.
while i am waiting for paint to dry…here are a few photos of one of the pieces that i am installing. i’m sanding the word “displace” into the wall by removing a layer of paint. the vinyl sticker is acting as a stencil.
Success! The banner I designed for BFA 2010 Luminous Deer is finally on the Digital Arts site. Thank you to Matt for letting me photograph his deer. It is super awesome.
Trying to figure out how to place my final BFA project. Here is a rough sketch up version. The the center dome is a directional speaker. I’m still not quite exactly sure what I’ll be doing with the walls. I may or may not have stuff to hang. I might even put a TV screen in the corner. We shall see how this turns out.
here is my artist statement:
process collaboration frustration complexity conceptualize communicate language type image confusion production ridiculous critical identity self-identification culture race ethnicity categorization data information observation design two-dimensional tension conflict concise contrast juxtaposition research experiments failure words mind-mapping bright color in-between blunt clean accountable thinking interpreting visual questioning discover lost lists impulse meticulous geography place space configuration efficiency evolving stubborn constant relationship intersecting experience
and the descriptions for both of the projects: Question number nine
Digital prints
Winter 2010
This series of portraits explores the categorizations of people – judgements and assumptions made that were only skin-deep. The project’s name comes from question number nine on the 2010 census – “what is person 1’s race?” Every person photographed experienced an awkward situation about their race or ethnic group because of a snap judgement based on their appearances alone. Through this series of portraits, custom-made t-shirts correct any stereotypes that might be made, avoiding awkwardness and pre-judgement (almost) altogether. People are categorized by what they are not – and for once, it makes life simpler.
Special thanks to Thomas Martinez for help with lighting and photography.
SE Powell
Digital Prints
Winter 2010
SE Powell in Portland, Oregon is a strange mishmash of culture and language, most evident by not only its inhabitants but the signs in many languages that line the streets. These signs act as markers for people of similar language and national heritage to connect – a “safe space” of like-minded (and like-tongued) people to forge cultural communities of their own.
But do these same signs, bent on drawing certain language-speakers in, serve to keep non-language speakers out? How are these words and characters interpreted by someone who cannot read them and finds no coherent meaning? Do such signs indicate who should be in these shops and who shouldn’t be?
For such a store, a shopkeeper might have very different expectations of a member of their own ethnicity – a deeper understanding and cultural connection than someone from an outer group. As a Taiwanese-Chinese-American (and someone who speaks very little Chinese), I inhabit the liminal space between ethnic acceptance and outgroup bewilderment – I cannot entirely understand a language that, because of my race and assumptions, I am expected to know. Language becomes a source of tension because I only partially understand what is happening.
Thank you to Andrew Parnell for helping me with hanging all of the prints.
With the insemination of computers and the internet into our daily lives, the way we view ownership has been slowly changing. When the printing press was introduced and information was available, for the first time, people were no longer dependent on authority to educate themselves. As such, not only was the common person now literate, people began writing and taking credit for their creative endeavors.
Now we see something very much similar happening. The digital age has created a new sense of ownership. With the availability of handheld cameras, web cams and cell phones with cameras, the common person, has the means of creating. Video work is not longer solely in the hands of a select few. Anybody, anywhere can pick up a camera and film something. We are seeing a familiar trend in information insemination. And in fact, in information multiplicity.
Special thanks to Andrew Parnell for lending us his grandma chairs and help with producing the boxes and signs. The boxes turned out awesome!!!!
