(3) 8’x8′ panels

These backdrops will be used in an upcoming performance by IS/LAND Perfomance Collective for an upcoming project (currently a work in progress) that will commemorate the stories of Angel Island detention survivors and educate the public on their stories.

The silk, cotton and ramie fabrics are hand dyed in shades of jade (many Chinese detainees named the immigration station The Jade Prison) and pieced in a way that references both prison bars as well as the wood walls on which many immigrants carved poetry documenting their experience. 

I am using a sewing technique called Jogakbo, a Korean patchwork method that traditionally used scraps of fabric and was born out of scarcity and necessity. Jogakbo patchwork is a sewing method for making Bojagi or wrapping cloths that are used to bundle belongings and speaks to the things we carry, both physically and emotionally.

48″x60″

I was adopted when I was three and I arrived with a bag of Korean “identity” including a large copy of A Handbook of Korea. The cover features a famous painting called titled Irworobongdo meaning sun, moon, and five peaks. Growing up the book was on my bedroom shelf and the image is locked in my memory as a visual idea of Korea. 

Inspired by the landscapes of the Irworobongdo and that of the American Western defined by the book True Grit by Charles Portis (and the Cohen brothers movie), the quilt illustrates the lived duality of being Asian and American.

fabric scraps, glycerine soap, light box
15”x12”x6”

Finest Cuts employs the metaphor of using the whole animal. Old clothes and linens are broken down into large cuts for reuse and the smallest bits and scraps became experiments in different ways of “processing” them.

48″x48″

This series of clay and stitched tiles explores the parts of a whole as flexible and adjusting to one’s environment. Claarity, condition, internal flaws, and external breakage take on new meaning when applied beyond the realm of gemstones.

copper pipe, masonry twine, plants
Collaboration with Linette Lao

Toward a vision of work
that sustains and supports—
and gives us equal
opportunities for individual
and collective growth.

An installation for the Workforce Pipeline Summit in Ann Arbor, MI.

(3) 8’x8′ panels

These backdrops will be used in an upcoming performance by IS/LAND Perfomance Collective for an upcoming project (currently a work in progress) that will commemorate the stories of Angel Island detention survivors and educate the public on their stories.

The silk, cotton and ramie fabrics are hand dyed in shades of jade (many Chinese detainees named the immigration station The Jade Prison) and pieced in a way that references both prison bars as well as the wood walls on which many immigrants carved poetry documenting their experience. 

I am using a sewing technique called Jogakbo, a Korean patchwork method that traditionally used scraps of fabric and was born out of scarcity and necessity. Jogakbo patchwork is a sewing method for making Bojagi or wrapping cloths that are used to bundle belongings and speaks to the things we carry, both physically and emotionally.

48″x60″

I was adopted when I was three and I arrived with a bag of Korean “identity” including a large copy of A Handbook of Korea. The cover features a famous painting called titled Irworobongdo meaning sun, moon, and five peaks. Growing up the book was on my bedroom shelf and the image is locked in my memory as a visual idea of Korea. 

Inspired by the landscapes of the Irworobongdo and that of the American Western defined by the book True Grit by Charles Portis (and the Cohen brothers movie), the quilt illustrates the lived duality of being Asian and American.

Finest Cuts employs the metaphor of using the whole animal. Old clothes and linens are broken down into large cuts for reuse and the smallest bits and scraps became experiments in different ways of “processing” them.

48″x48″

This series of clay and stitched tiles explores the parts of a whole as flexible and adjusting to one’s environment. Claarity, condition, internal flaws, and external breakage take on new meaning when applied beyond the realm of gemstones.

copper pipe, masonry twine, plants
Collaboration with Linette Lao

Toward a vision of work
that sustains and supports—
and gives us equal
opportunities for individual
and collective growth.

An installation for the Workforce Pipeline Summit in Ann Arbor, MI.