Project Overview & Exhibitions | 2021 – 2024
“Across the Ocean” is an interdisciplinary project that examines how food serves as a bridge between culture and personal memory while also being a vehicle for stereotypes and clichés. Using familiar ingredients like rice, soy sauce, and other traditional foods, I explore how Western cultures perpetuate reductive notions of “Asianness,” reducing complex identities to simplistic tropes. Food, deeply tied to heritage and everyday life, becomes the medium through which I question how cultural perceptions are formed, sustained, and distorted.
The project has been exhibited at various venues, such as the Rencontres Arles, Mucho Mas! Gallery, Photography Museum Braunschweig, and Savvy Contemporary Berlin.
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“Across the Ocean” was inspired by my late aunt, who was a contract worker in the former GDR in 1986. As the eldest daughter in my mother’s family, she wrote letters home that painted an idealized picture of her life in Germany, omitting the challenges of surveillance, discrimination, and hardship she faced. In 2014, during a visit to her home and through subsequent research into family archives, I uncovered the contrast between the hopeful image she projected and the reality she endured. This personal discovery led me to use food and its symbolic power to investigate immigrant identity and the layers of meaning hidden beneath polished narratives.
Food, in this context, represents more than nourishment—it carries stories, memories, and collective identities. I incorporate food imagery and acrylic glass, a material symbolizing consumerism and industrialization, to evoke both cultural pride and commodification. Through a process of distortion and destruction, I transform these materials, breaking the surface of stereotypes to reveal underlying personal and collective traumas. This process is a metaphor for deconstructing the idealized image of the “good immigrant” and challenging the stereotypes imposed on Asian communities.
“Across the Ocean” opens a dialogue about immigration policies in Germany and Europe and their lasting impact on individuals and communities. Through collected artifacts and personal memories, the project emphasizes the complex intersections of cultural heritage, displacement, and trauma, offering a space for empathy and critical reflection on how discriminatory practices shape identities.
The project is realized through a 3-channel performance video, photographic works, and print-based installations. These diverse forms come together in immersive installations and live performances, creating layered experiences that encourage viewers to engage deeply with questions of identity, migration, and cultural memory. By centering food as both a personal and political symbol, “Across the Ocean” invites audiences to reflect on how cultural identity is constructed and perceived in contemporary society.
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“Across the Ocean” was inspired by my late aunt, who was a contract worker in the former GDR in 1986. As the eldest daughter in my mother’s family, she wrote letters home that painted an idealized picture of her life in Germany, omitting the challenges of surveillance, discrimination, and hardship she faced. In 2014, during a visit to her home and through subsequent research into family archives, I uncovered the contrast between the hopeful image she projected and the reality she endured. This personal discovery led me to use food and its symbolic power to investigate immigrant identity and the layers of meaning hidden beneath polished narratives.
Food, in this context, represents more than nourishment—it carries stories, memories, and collective identities. I incorporate food imagery and acrylic glass, a material symbolizing consumerism and industrialization, to evoke both cultural pride and commodification. Through a process of distortion and destruction, I transform these materials, breaking the surface of stereotypes to reveal underlying personal and collective traumas. This process is a metaphor for deconstructing the idealized image of the “good immigrant” and challenging the stereotypes imposed on Asian communities.
“Across the Ocean” opens a dialogue about immigration policies in Germany and Europe and their lasting impact on individuals and communities. Through collected artifacts and personal memories, the project emphasizes the complex intersections of cultural heritage, displacement, and trauma, offering a space for empathy and critical reflection on how discriminatory practices shape identities.
The project is realized through a 3-channel performance video, photographic works, and print-based installations. These diverse forms come together in immersive installations and live performances, creating layered experiences that encourage viewers to engage deeply with questions of identity, migration, and cultural memory. By centering food as both a personal and political symbol, “Across the Ocean” invites audiences to reflect on how cultural identity is constructed and perceived in contemporary society.
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