Artist Statement
As an artist who is based in Sydney, it is essential for me to examine how my context as a female artist of migrant Chinese heritage inflects the relationships that I develop with people and places within Australia. My family arrived in Sydney from Penang, Malaysia, thirty years ago on February 19th, 1991. My Hakka ancestors have a long history of migrating and settling upon the lands of other people, and by moving to Sydney, we have continued this tradition by making our home in Gadigal and Darramuragal Countries.
In listening to the stories of local migrant people who are residing in the Georges River Council area, I considered how their journeys, like mine, have unfolded upon Aboriginal Countries. They spoke of the incredible warmth and intensity of colour in the land, water and sky, their sensory receptiveness heightened by encounters with a landscape that was utterly distinct from those that they had experienced in China and other countries. Having grown up here, my bodily senses have been shaped by the Australian land. However, in engaging with places through embodied listening, drawing and sounding processes, I continue to be surprised by the rich variations of my home. By engaging with the wind in Oatley Park and allowing it to direct the lines of my drawing, I chose to work within a significant meeting place of the Biddegal People. Listening to the wind, trees, water, animals and languages from different cultures in Oatley Park and Carrs Bush Park, I realise that these places continue to be practiced as a point of convergence for the journeys of many people.
In the context of the work I have made for Our Journeys Our Stories, I decided to draw upon the elements of chance that are inherent within the practice of using 求籤 qiúqiān. I was also fascinated by how this practice articulates a desire to ascertain some form of direction amidst the uncertainty of manifold possible pathways in our lives. This understanding intermingled with my interpretation of the oral histories provided by local people in the Georges River Council area and how their journeys made unexpected twists and turns in response to contingent events that unfolded when they arrived in Australia. These ideas are expressed through my use of aleatory drawing processes that engage with the wind in Oatley Park on Biddegal Country. Each line embodies a possible path that I could journey along in the thirty years that I have lived in Australia. The gesture of gently throwing or scattering objects is also an action that I hope to incorporate into a drawing workshop in the exhibition’s public programs.
