Prosperity Portals
KINGS ARI, VIC
Exhibition Text
Image credit: Aaron Claringbold
List of works:
The Pioneers, 2020-21
HD single channel video with colour and sound, 15m45sec. Sound engineer: Bonnie Cummings
This body of work is informed by my paternal family’s agricultural practices in the 20th century, as immigrants to Southern rural Malaysia (Peninsula).
A video combines audio excerpts from interviews with my family members alongside imagery collected over the last 5 years, a moving collage reflecting on wealth accumulated from foreign land. A second economy is engaged by making paper from plants sourced from my current geographic location in lutruwita Tasmania. These papers are imitative of Joss paper, which is burnt as offerings to ancestors in Chinese culture, and many others across Asia. Other forms of offerings are resituatuated in the gallery to consider the indebtedness of settlement on foreign land through migration.
I would like to extend my respects to Elders of world Indigenous Communities, including the First Nations communities of the Archipelagos that make up Malaysia (Orang Asli of the Peninsula and Orang Asal in Malay).
Sound Engineer: Bonnie Cummings
Thanks to my family, Lauren Burrow, Rosie Isaac, Neika Lehman, Ben Richardson, Bonnie Cummings, Nunzio Madden, Grace Herbert, Polly Stanton and Kristen Sharp for their assistance with this project.
