The China Outpost 中華前沿

00254 Fri 13Sep19 . I completed my residency in Taos around a month ago. The last few weeks of my residency moved swiftly. I moved swiftly to capture footages of the #essayfilm I’ve been working on whilst in Taos. I found a place that mirrored the title of my film - #InTandemWithTimeRiversBecome. It’s the confluence of where the Red River and the Rio Grande become one; it’s a place where I move in tandem with time. Slowness collapses time - - the past, the present, the conscious, the subconscious - - allowing me to see such spaces as containers, holding stories and layers upon layers of what lies beneath. I spent some time here to converse with it, to excavate meaning from it. #WurlitzerResidency #thechinaoutpost

00253 Thu 01Aug19 . I’m eight weeks into #WurlitzerResidency.  A dear friend had recommended that I read Wanderlust by #RebeccaSolnit as it relates to my work. I picked up a copy the first week of my residency. Since then, I’ve embarked on a journey with Rebecca’s words resulting in an ongoing work where I am having a conversation with Rebecca. I’d responded to certain passages that resonated with me. These responses are accompanied with a visual collage. I do not know where this is headed. For the time being, it’s taking the form of an installation inside my casita whilst at the Wurlitzer. Eventually, I foresee taking the essence of these exchanges into a script for my forthcoming #essayfilm - #InTandemWithTimeRiversBecome. I also intend to mail a copy of my responses to Rebecca - even though I do not know her personally … I feel compelled to this gesture.

00252 Thu 01Aug19 . I’m eight weeks into #WurlitzerResidency.  Reading a passage from Werner Herzog’s journals - “November 1974, a friend from Paris called and told me that Lotte Eisner was seriously ill and would probably die. I said that this must not be, not at this time … I took a jacket, a compass and a duffel bag … I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot…”  Herzog’s heart and passion for a dear friend is uplifting! I’m in #Taos - working on an #essayfilm entitled #InTandemWithTimeRiversBecome … like Herzog, I wander around the mountains, along the Rio Grande, mountain peaks - making sense of my dreams that has serendipitously brought me here. I pour my heart and passion into the land.  A few weeks back, I discovered a space place. It is a place where two rivers meet, a place where I move in tandem with time.

00250 Mon 01Jul19 . I’m three weeks into the #WurlitzerResidency. The unfolding of my latest essay film moves slowly. I’ve trekked up this looping path that leads to Devisadero Peak three times since my arrival. The experiences have translated into images, drawings, stitches, writings. They mark my processes of giving wholeheartedly to a place. Some of these elements may work themselves back into the film. Divisadero means (n) a division; (v) to gaze at something. According to the US Forest Service, the peak had once been used by the Taos Pueblo Indians to stand guard. #InTandemWithTimeRiversBecome #thechinaoutpost #essayfilm #taos

00249 Sat 08Jun19 . Settling in . I’m surrounded by whistling leaves . Work begins in studio . #WurlitzerResidency #Taos #intandemwithtimeriversbecome #essayfilm

00248 Wed 05Jun19 . I will be at the Wurlitzer Residency in Taos for the next few months. Words cannot describe how thrilled I am! Overlapping inexplicable moments have led me on this journey. There, I will focus on my latest essay film, “In Tandem With Time, Rivers Become”. The work will chronicle my search for past ancestral routes from the base of the gorge to the grand mesa while weaving stories from my dreams that led me to Taos, stories from elders of surrounding Pueblos and footages of my durational performance of retracing these routes up from the Rio Grande. #WurlitzerResidency #Taos #thechinaoutpost

00247 Sun 12May19 . As I construct these containers from cast off materials to house these baby plants, I think of our mother, our mother’s mother, our ancestors. They continue to nourish our growth. #thechinaoutpost

00246 Wed 01May19 (Int’l Workers’ Day / #MayDay) . It’s been a while since my last posting.  Work at #thechinaoutpost continues.  I’ve set up shop in Santa Fe NM.  Very grateful to be here!

00245 Tue 30Oct18 . 1611p >>> 28Oct18 - #chinaonscreenbiennial . Los Angeles  >>>  In Spring of 2017, I traveled to the Gobi Desert to the Mogao Grottoes - it was the beginning of my recent #essayfilm entitled “Wandering Movements” that premiered at the #chinaonscreenbiennial > Inspired from a cave painting depicting a map of past devotees making pilgrimages to a sacred mountain of five plateaus, “Wandering Movements” tells the story of a migrant’s journey to his inner plateaus as he reflects upon his sites of struggles, the meaning of borders, and the shaping of one’s identity.  >>> made in #thechinaoutpost

The performance engaged with the Burnside community on a meditative journey of remembering our ancestors. The evening began with storytelling intwined with a film screening entitled “Flower Remember Year” to contextualize a collective performance of simple gestures in offering food to Grandpa Maple and wrapping a hand-dyed discarded fabric around the sacred tree. In the spirit of healing, the performance concluded with a communal meal that I’d prepared to honor the tree, the ancestors of this land and our personal ancestors.

00243 Thu 11Oct18 . 0826a >>> 11Jul18 - Shamian Island . Guangzhou ::: Healing begins by facing the foundation of contentious land, the stolen land - the unfamiliar.   I returned to Shamian Island, a land that was ceded to Britain and France as a result of the Opium Wars in the 1800s.  It has since returned to Chinese sovereignty. What’s left behind are colonial debris engulfed by Guangzhou’s hyper urban development. What will the public space on Shamian Island look like with the eventual reconstruction of my ancestral house on this contested site?  I made a pilgrimage here to better understand the site’s current use and how people interact with the space. I was surprised to observe the public’s strong desire and sentiment towards these colonial buildings. Newlyweds, dressed in their suits and gowns, staged photoshoots of their wedding pictures in front of these foreign structures while models struck poses for their fashion shoots.  Curious passerby captured images of these activities while taking their selfies along the way.  I felt like I was a part of a weird theatre unfolding as I walked down the central axis that divides the island’s east-west corridor.  The experience, needless to say, was too overwhelming.

00242 Sun 07Oct18 . 2143p  >>> Brings me joy to complete a scale model of my ancestral house.  Though this is one section of the house where the family altar lives, it’s one step forward.  #walkwithme exhibition.  Thank you Santa Fe Art Institute for the gift of this space and providing me with a platform to voice my stories.

The text is accompanied by #DorotheaLange iconic 1942 image of first-graders, some of Japanese ancestry, at the Weill public school, San Francisco California, pledging allegiance to the United State flag. According to Gladys Hansen, 7 days after Lange left Weill School, registration began for another wave of #internments, and the next day, half of the Japanese were removed from San Francisco and housed in converted horse stalls at Tanforan Race Track in San Mateo County.  By 20 May 1942, they were all gone, including every Japanese child in Dorothea Lange’s photographs.

This map resided at the south wall of my exhibition entitled #walkwithme @ #santafeartinstitute

00239 Sat 30Jun18 . 1305p >>> (Mar 2018) Philip P Choy pour his heart in advocating the immigration station at #angelisland as a place of national significance. A plaque was dedicated in 1997. The existing detention center is now a museum. The family members whose ancestors were detained on Angel Island had their closure.  How to make the stagnant plaque breath again?  How do I give life to this static site for others? As #thechinaoutpost moves between spaces, curious passerby often ask me where shall I reconstruct my ancestral house?  I can only manage to say, “I do not know but it must be by a body of water.” I now have a more concrete answer, that is, I shall reconstruct my ancestral house on this contested land.  The spatial injustice of this land requires excavation.  What arises is a platform for all of us to be in conversation about the relevancy of this story to the unfolding, malleable events happening to families and individuals who are detained today.

00238 Sat 30Jun18 . 1119a >>> months have past … reluctant to post.  #thechinaoutpost made a pilgrimage to #angelisland in March to pay respect to our ancestors who were detained within these walls at the height of the Chinese Exclusion Act. #RacialExclusion of the past still haunts to this present day. (at Hong Kong International Airport 香港國際機場)

00237 Fri 23Mar18 . 0920 >>> the art community has convened @pitzerartgalleries for meaningful conversations about defending our community against gentrification, artistic culture of the incarcerated, creative/critical response to the policing of borders in the global north and south, and the on-going vestiges of violence. #thechinaoutpost ... (at Pitzer College)