Artist Statement:

The works I create are time capsules. Moments in time, space, a thought, feeling, idea, or experience, that I want to contain in a way that captures its essence, to be remembered or shared. This could happen in sound, words, image, video, physical movements, or a combination of these elements. Although I move between many mediums, I find myself always coming back to the world of sound, especially when trying to communicate in experiential ways rather than conceptual. Due to its unique relationship with time, physicality, and memory, I find that sound engages with the imagination in ways that visual art forms do not. Sound exists as vibrations moving through a medium, perceived over the passage of time. The captured sound of a place or object, can communicate its material, essence, and surrounding context. Hearing sound can invoke a wide range of imagery and emotional association depending on the experiences of the listener. To me, the composition of sound works means to utilize both implicit and explicit associations with particular sounds, interweaving them to interact in ways that create a journey for the listener to embark on. In my works, these journeys often center around aspects of the human experience. Influenced by my intersecting identities as a Taiwanese woman, immigrant, artist, counsellor, as well as profound spiritual experiences with plant medicines; my works tend to explore topics around relationships with land, waters, ancestry, each other, identity, consciousness, perceptions of reality and self. From the macro of the world to the micro of the personal experience, I continue to learn through the process of observing, processing, then creating, the interrelatedness between the nature of our existence and the world that we live in.

Project Statement:

Living in a city with the normalized culture of productivity and perpetual busy-ness, including the vapic bombardment of online stimulation, the most essential and effective form of self care for me has been to intentionally leave space in my schedule for “nothing”. Periods of time where I tune out of external noise, whether that be in the physical or digital world, and return to my home space, to care for it through staying in and listening in.

This piece Space is Made journeys through field recordings of my daily commute in the city, EMF signals of electronics during social media use, and transitions into the inner world of this meditative experience through recordings of contact microphones on home appliances composed into an evolving drone.

My living space is an extension and reflection of my inner world, the state of each room often serves as an accurate indicator for how I am feeling. I have developed a practice of taking the time weekly to approach domestic tasks such as laundry, dishes, sweeping, de-cluttering with the intention of slowing down, becoming present, and tuning in to what my home - and by extension myself, needs in the moment. In other words, it is the meditation of the mundane.