我的 Rotten Mandarin
我的 Rotten Mandarin was photographed over the course of 2016 and 2017 while living and working in Shenzhen, China. The series explores my personal experience as a foreigner and my attempt to comprehend my new surroundings. The photographs were made in my apartment and of the surrounding area. As I moved through the space over and over again, I witnessed minute to grand transformations of my environment. As I saw my world differently, I saw myself differently. While the interior of my apartment was changing at a slow rate, the outside world was changing rapidly. In this series, the building of a new city is seen from my apartment complex as the mountain view became dominated by the construction of new skyscrapers. I explored my transitioning perception of myself and my surroundings in the still lives that I constructed.
Chinese Knot 中国结 I collected dozens of cigarette boxes found on the streets of Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Beijing. I meticulously deconstructed the boxes and hand-wove them into a 10 meter long ribbon. Half was woven while I was living in China and half once I returned to the United States.
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Ground Picture 地图While collecting cigarette boxes, I also collected transportation receipts from bus, taxi, ferry, and train rides in Shenzhen and Beijing. Made in a similar method as Chinese Knot, Ground Picture (地 图), is inspired by city development and is woven starting from the middle and working outward.
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Paris Audition and September Song
Both pieces are made of music scores that were being discarded by the Frankfurt Hochschule für Musik and Darstellende Kunst’s library collection. Over the course of a year, I meticulously deconstructed each score and reassembled the fragile bits of paper to create another type of composition. Paris Audition, depicted on the right, originally a score of Beethoven piano sonatas, is comprised of hundreds of three dimensional rectangles that are sewn together and layered on top of each other creating a work that addresses the layered quality of the sonata format. September Song, made from a score of orchestral works by Bach, was created as a response to Paris Audition. I intended for September Song to be a two-dimensional work with two sides, so that it may conceal and reveal Paris Audition. The titles of these works are in reference to my personal narrative and are not derived from the original music scores that they are made of.
Installation Images from Foreign Matter: A Narrative Account. Ten Gallery, New Orleans, La. Solo exhibition in April of 2016.