In Chinese there is a saying from a poem that goes, 近乡情怯, the closer you are to home, the more timid you feel. I first left China, my home country, when I was 15. Now this saying resonates deeply. What happened in these 10 years away? What makes the idea of going home so complicated? In this video performance, I use a blend of archival, experimental, and documentary footage to explore the consequences and nuances of leaving home.
Traces of migration and home linger, ferment, and boil over. I experiment with layering self-portraits in different mediums, and at the end appears as herself in a performance to express the layers of identity masks she takes on during migration. In addition, I use the act of "collaging" as metaphor for the frutile act of stitching identity back after shattering one's known worldviews in the repeating processes of acculturations.
Video Installation & Performance
