My practice explores embodied female identity, specifically Asian female labour. As I make work through sculptural tools for performance and video, I am faced with questions that seek to understand how Asian women navigate the post-colonial West. How have they taken advantage of the metaphors and constraints and how might they progress into the future? Will we ever escape the influence of colonialism and its white gaze?
Hair has become a potent material and metaphor in my work. It embodies my identity, encodes the DNA that my ancestors have gifted me, yet it takes labour to maintain it. Hair has become a transmutation of myself, an entanglement of the symbols and images that ultimately attempt to define and shape identity. Attached to the body, it’s an alluring signifier of health and vitality but once cut, becomes repulsive to touch.