Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

liane chan

tight-knit yet far apart

a half complete knit scarf on oversized nails; the remaining yarn rolling down to the ground.The relationship between my Cantonese/Canadian identity is literally built upon the railroad spike and textile Labour. Descending from Cantonese migrant workers, this work touches on the proximity of culture within diaspora; articulating personal struggles with language resurgence, cultural practices, and familial & ancestral dis/connections. This in-progress textile exemplifies the Labour required to maintain my own ties with cultural identity within diaspora. Each moment spent not practicing language, food practices, or ancestral veneration puts me at risk of being chewed apart and swallowed whole by the Western-colonial assimilating machine.