DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/TYE7-QX48

Defense Date

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts

Department

Craft/Material Studies

First Advisor

Scott Braun

Second Advisor

Kendall Buster

Third Advisor

Susan Ganch

Fourth Advisor

A. Blair Clemo

Abstract

I’m a first-generation Canadian who was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario by Asian immigrants. I have migrated to the United States and lived here for 7 years. Through my work, I express the emotional value of preconceived notions, disconnectedness, and longing in search of finding place and acceptance within a community. Drawing from memory, personal narrative, emotion, and perception, I manipulate data into lines, forms, and materials through a subjective human experience from the lens of a non-citizen. By projecting the migration movement of my family lineage from China and the Philippines to Canada as well as my path to the United States, I am deconstructing and reconstructing meaning and purpose of fragmented identity. Through the use of statistical data that represents migration patterns, my own identification number, and metaphors around borders and access, I am exploring representations of phenomena, displacement, belonging, and defeat as a response to social and cultural order. Through my formal training as a woodworker, the work aims to communicate sympathy through hardship, accessibility, and the desire of a migrant finding place. I produce aesthetically engaging sculptural forms made from reclaimed solid wood, found materials, and domestic construction building materials at an architectural scale.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-12-2022

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