Lan ç±£
This installation explores the enduring memories of my grandmother, Lan, through three interconnected pieces. The central work features a black velvet drape on a Chinese-style garment rack, symbolizing her nurturing spirit and unfulfilled dreams. Mother-of-pearl laser-cut characters shimmer in the dark, representing her passions buried beneath life's chores. The second piece, a wind chime made from cuttlebone-cast metal, echoes her beloved cuttlefish dish, creating a sensory bridge between past and present. The final work juxtaposes her lifelike photo with embroidered details, contrasting monotone and vibrant threads, blurry images and precise patterns, and the tension between loss and reinterpreted memories.
Together, the materials and crafts—velvet, mother-of-pearl, cuttlebone casting, and embroidery—embody Lan's resilience, creativity, and the enduring connection between generations.
A Velvety Song | Installation | 2025
Materials: Velvet, Mother-of-pearl, Wood garment rack, Threads
Dimension: H: 1.8 m x 1.7 m x D: 45 cm
This installation honors my grandmother, Lan, born in Nanjing, China, through a blend of materials and symbolism. A large black velvet drape, suspended from a Chinese-style garment rack, embodies her gentle nature and love for Qi pao, the traditional dress she adored. Laser-cut mother-of-pearl Chinese characters, etched with lyrics from Zhou Xuan’s 1940s songs, dangle delicately, evoking her cherished memories. The velvet features a fabric-etched map of Nanjing, her birthplace, using fabric devour techniques to highlight her roots.
Together, these elements weave a tactile and visual narrative of Lan’s identity, passions, and the enduring elegance of her life.
A Familiar Breeze | Installation | 2025
Materials: Iron, Zinc, Cuttlebone, Plaster, Threads
Dimension: H: 2.5 m x W: 1.5 m x D: 1.5 m
This installation commemorates my grandmother’s love and dedication through the humble cuttlefish, a dish she often prepared for our family in 1980s China. Beyond nourishment, cuttlefish bones became toys for her grandchildren, reflecting her playful and nurturing spirit.
Using cuttlebones as molds, I employ an ancient casting technique to create metal wind chime components. The chime’s melodic sounds evoke her enduring presence, while the cuttlebones displayed beneath symbolize the tangible memories she left behind. Through material and process, this piece honors her legacy of care, creativity, and the simple joys she brought to our lives.
Threads of Remembrance | Installation | 2025
Materials: Photo negative, Silk threads, wood board
Dimension: H: 1.67 m x W: 85 cm x D: 3 cm
This installation intertwines a life-size photo negative of my grandmother with vibrant silk thread embroideries, creating a dialogue between contrasts. The monotone negative, blurred and fragile, represents the fading past and loss, while the colorful, precise embroidery symbolizes the vitality of memory and what endures. The juxtaposition of the photo’s dilapidation and the silk’s luster bridges time, merging past and present, absence and presence.
Through these materials and their contrasts, the piece explores the tension between memory’s fragility and the enduring beauty of commemoration, honoring my grandmother’s legacy in a tactile, visual narrative.
Where waters flow | Installation | 2025
Materials: Cedar wood board, Rice paper, Printmaking paper, Wood bar, LED screen
Dimension: Total height: 2.5m, Table: L:110 cm x W: 60 cm x H: 40 cm / ea
This installation explores the enduring memories of my grandmother, Lan, through three interconnected pieces. The central work features a black velvet drape on a Chinese-style garment rack, symbolizing her nurturing spirit and unfulfilled dreams. Mother-of-pearl laser-cut characters shimmer in the dark, representing her passions buried beneath life's chores. The second piece, a wind chime made from cuttlebone-cast metal, echoes her beloved cuttlefish dish, creating a sensory bridge between past and present. The final work juxtaposes her lifelike photo with embroidered details, contrasting monotone and vibrant threads, blurry images and precise patterns, and the tension between loss and reinterpreted memories.
Together, the materials and crafts—velvet, mother-of-pearl, cuttlebone casting, and embroidery—embody Lan's resilience, creativity, and the enduring connection between generations.
Whispers of the Iron Road | Installation | 2025
Materials: Used metal spikes for railroad, metal wires
Dimension: H: 1.2 m x L: 2.5 m x W: 1.5 m (approx.)
It is an art installation honoring the Chinese workers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway (1880-1886). Over two thousand workers perished, their sacrifices unrecognized, as they were excluded from the Last Spike ceremony.
The installation features one thousand suspended railway spikes, shaped into a boat platform at 1.2 meters high, symbolizing the journey of their spirits back to China. When wind flows, the spikes clink, creating haunting echoes that bridge past and present, awakening memories of their suffering and contributions. The use of spikes and metal wires reflects the railway's construction and the enduring resilience of their forgotten legacy.
​Fading Echoes | Installation | 2025
Materials: Canvas, Charcoal, Iron wire
Dimension: Tipi cover: W: 5 m x H: 2.8 m
This interactive installation explores the erasure of Indigenous languages and cultures in Canada. A tipi-shaped canvas, symbolizing home and homeland, is layered with a rubbed map of Indigenous territories and laser-cut names of endangered languages. Light passing through the cuts projects these names onto the wall, confronting viewers with their absence.
A central pole holds headphones, allowing visitors to listen to extinct languages via QR codes.
Combining traditional and extended printmaking techniques, the work merges materiality and technology to evoke loss, resilience, and the urgent need to preserve Indigenous heritage. Interaction deepens the connection to this fading cultural echo.
The Silent Towers | Installation | 2025
Materials: LED poles, LED touch screen film, Metal mesh, Sound track of wind and water flow and birds chirp
Dimension: LED poles: D: 25 cm x H: 1.8 m, Boats: L:14 ft x D: 2 in x W: 30 in
It is an immersive art installation inspired by the Indigenous scaffold burial traditions of Canada and North America, where trees or wooden scaffolds cradle coffins or canoes to honor the deceased and facilitate communication with spirits. The work reinterprets this ritual, exploring universal themes of life, death, and memory in a modern context.
Three sculptural mesh canoes, symbolizing the spirits of the departed, hover above LED poles displaying moving images of trees, waterfalls, and birds. The meditative atmosphere, enhanced by ambient sounds of nature, becomes interactive: touching the poles dims the screens and illuminates the canoes, symbolizing the enduring connection between the living and the dead. The use of LED technology and sculptural mesh bridges tradition and modernity, inviting reflection on the cyclical nature of existence.