Belongingness
2023, installation/sculpture,
paper mache clay, spray foam sealant, yarn
“Belongingness” (2023) is an installation and sculpture based on the environment in which it is displayed. The work can be as small if the crochet grid is folded on top of another, but it is also as big as to become a barrier when the entire grid is spread out.
The grid of this pattern came from the brick wall behind one of the altars for worshiping ancestors across from the main hall of the sanheyuan in my family's hometown, Miaoli, Taiwan. The main hall in Sanheyuan was the heart of the family; it was first built for the family to find roots and find that sense of belonging as immigrants. That pattern signifies the physical home and the root of Han culture for me. However, my feelings of belonging to this place were provided by my relationship with my mother, who was not born and raised here. She has a different last name, and like many wives who married a traditional Han family, she worshiped the ancestors following the culture, but she was not part of it. I learned to crochet from my mother throughout my upbringing. As she taught me how to crochet, she also weaves out that sense of security for a home in my childhood. Soft and gentle.
"I remember the first summer I spent alone at my grandparents' place. They took good care of me with all their love, but that feeling of disconnection was still there. I have always considered that big house my grandparents' home and, in the future, my father's, and maybe one day mine. But finding my childhood self belongs in that big old house only when my mother was around. She was my definition of home and secure.
A couple of years later, as my grandpa passed away and my grandma moved to the city, I returned to this old house in the summer of 22. The person who was with me is still my mother. Nothing changed here. I came home after a day at the ceramic studio. Dinner on the table and her on the bamboo chair watching TV."
