Family Archives
2020
4”x 24.5”, 4”x 30”, 6”x 32”
Weaving of reused photos with sewing threads, embroidery
thread and plastic binding combs
Original photographies taken by my mother Lucille
I approach photography as a symbolic gesture to understand the past and reconstruct the present. In Family Archive Series, I work with personal photographs from my parents’ home renovations in 2004—a period better documented than my own adoption. By manipulating these images digitally and physically, I create a second timeline that reflects my Chinese and French-Canadian heritage. The use of woven patterns inspired by Chinese calendars evokes the ongoing process of learning my native culture from a Western lens, while exploring the materiality and mobility of photographic paper.
