[ Mooncake Party ]
Date
2021-05
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Abstract
I was born in Canada, and grew up in Hong Kong. As the youngest female child of a conservative Chinese family, my voice was not welcomed. The ability to speak faded away. At age12, I moved back to Canada, where a series of traumatic issues were created by the constant flux amidst two cultures - Chinese and Western. At age 20, I began to resist my traditional role. I started using openness and humour in my ceramics to overcome feelings of guilt when speaking about family shame. Every day, I process my progress. I gather stories of domestic encounters and private narratives. Simultaneously, I find relationships between these stories and the materials I use in my practice, such as resin, rice paper and ball point pen. I ask: Is clay actually the old grump? Does making a humorous sculpture help me to strip down guilt? Can using ball point pen bring back innocence? My ultimate goal is to face head-on the heavy hearted matter. When the heart allows, I convert these stories through the work of cartoonistic gesture into bearable, yet straightforward imagery to reveal the raw emotional experiences we share. Overtime, I hope the sweet anticipation for mooncake parties will become fruitful.
Description
Thesis completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, NY.
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MFA thesis, Ceramic Art, Culture, Trauma, Humor