PROJECT HOME
Exploring Chinese immigrant culture
"Project Home" is an exhibition held by SMAJAcuration at the Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, NY from 15/04 to 16/05. The show seeks to explore what “home” means to artists as well as how a sense of belonging and home is created in geographical spaces as well as by the everyday, mundane objects in our lives.
Work 1: 流浪者 / Chasers
2018
Print and Chinese ink
我就这样告别山下的家
我就这样照顾自己长大
如果有一天我悄然离去
请把我埋在故乡土地里
取自「流浪记」（巴奈）与「春天里」（汪峰）。
“流浪者”是为远离家乡的勇敢追梦者而作。以外人的身份长大的我们，学会独立、学会打拼、学会不在意孤单的痛楚。但是再坚强的我们，成功的外表始终隐藏不住对家乡的那股炙热浓郁的思念。
I bid farewell to my home beneath the hill
I learned to grow up and take care of myself
But if one day I were to die quietly here
Please bring me home and bury me in my soil
Adapted from 流浪记 (Wanderer's Song) by 巴奈 (Ba Nai) and 春天里 (Springtime) by 汪峰 (Wang Feng). 流浪者 [Chasers] is an ode to the fearless dream-chasers who leave their hometowns in Asia to pursue the American Dream. Growing up as outsiders, they learn to live independently and contend with the dull, gnawing ache of loneliness, all while fighting to survive in an alien world. Behind every success story, is a wealth of scars and a child pining for home.
Print and Chinese ink
我就这样告别山下的家
我就这样照顾自己长大
如果有一天我悄然离去
请把我埋在故乡土地里
取自「流浪记」（巴奈）与「春天里」（汪峰）。
“流浪者”是为远离家乡的勇敢追梦者而作。以外人的身份长大的我们，学会独立、学会打拼、学会不在意孤单的痛楚。但是再坚强的我们，成功的外表始终隐藏不住对家乡的那股炙热浓郁的思念。
I bid farewell to my home beneath the hill
I learned to grow up and take care of myself
But if one day I were to die quietly here
Please bring me home and bury me in my soil
Adapted from 流浪记 (Wanderer's Song) by 巴奈 (Ba Nai) and 春天里 (Springtime) by 汪峰 (Wang Feng). 流浪者 [Chasers] is an ode to the fearless dream-chasers who leave their hometowns in Asia to pursue the American Dream. Growing up as outsiders, they learn to live independently and contend with the dull, gnawing ache of loneliness, all while fighting to survive in an alien world. Behind every success story, is a wealth of scars and a child pining for home.
Work 2: 星际 / Astral Naught
2018
Print and Chinese ink
住在陌生的环境、走在陌生的街道、观察着冷漠的脸庞，你就像迷失茫茫星际中的太空人一样渺小无助。互联网让世界缩小了，但是每当你的目光脱离荧幕，这座城市还是看似如此浩大。感觉好像街道上擦身而过的旁人都在以充满敌意的眼神凝视着你，看穿了并不属于这里的你。或许，这一切也可能只是你自己的幻想。
Living in an alien place, walking alien streets and looking at cold, alien faces, you are as tiny, defenceless and out-of-place as a lone astronaut in pitch-black space. The internet has made the world smaller, but when you look up from your screen at unfamiliar surroundings the city seems as incomprehensibly vast as the cosmos itself. Everyone you pass by is observing you with hostile, watchful eyes; they know you do not belong.
Or are you just imagining things?
Print and Chinese ink
住在陌生的环境、走在陌生的街道、观察着冷漠的脸庞，你就像迷失茫茫星际中的太空人一样渺小无助。互联网让世界缩小了，但是每当你的目光脱离荧幕，这座城市还是看似如此浩大。感觉好像街道上擦身而过的旁人都在以充满敌意的眼神凝视着你，看穿了并不属于这里的你。或许，这一切也可能只是你自己的幻想。
Living in an alien place, walking alien streets and looking at cold, alien faces, you are as tiny, defenceless and out-of-place as a lone astronaut in pitch-black space. The internet has made the world smaller, but when you look up from your screen at unfamiliar surroundings the city seems as incomprehensibly vast as the cosmos itself. Everyone you pass by is observing you with hostile, watchful eyes; they know you do not belong.
Or are you just imagining things?
Work 3: 吃饭了吗? / Have you eaten?
2018
Mixed media and Chinese ink
每逢春节，全球华人都会不惜遥远，行万里路回家过年。但是，有些家庭因各种原因始终无法团聚。这些父母亲便会把送给孩子的红包收起保管，默默等待着孩子归来之日。年复一年，红包越攒越多，里面不仅仅装着钱，也充满了天下父母隐藏在心中的思念。
Every Lunar New Year, the Chinese will return home for a family reunion. Parents will give their children money in red packets as a blessing of good fortune. However, many immigrant families do not have the money or time to go home, and will spend the New Year thousands of miles apart. Each year, parents will keep their children's red packets safe until the day they come home, filled with their unspoken love and worry expressed the only way they know how: "have you eaten?"
Mixed media and Chinese ink
每逢春节，全球华人都会不惜遥远，行万里路回家过年。但是，有些家庭因各种原因始终无法团聚。这些父母亲便会把送给孩子的红包收起保管，默默等待着孩子归来之日。年复一年，红包越攒越多，里面不仅仅装着钱，也充满了天下父母隐藏在心中的思念。
Every Lunar New Year, the Chinese will return home for a family reunion. Parents will give their children money in red packets as a blessing of good fortune. However, many immigrant families do not have the money or time to go home, and will spend the New Year thousands of miles apart. Each year, parents will keep their children's red packets safe until the day they come home, filled with their unspoken love and worry expressed the only way they know how: "have you eaten?"
Simon Tang
Artist Statement
The Asian tongue is cautious. Our words are measured, polite and few. Instead, the Asian artist speaks through his brush – where the Western artist strives to replicate life in a frame, the Asian artist strives to impart life. No two calligraphers can create the same work, because each stroke is inked with his own emotion. In a culture of conformity, traditional Asian art is a celebration of the organic and vulnerable.
My work lies somewhere between the West and the East. I use elements, methods and aesthetics from both modern Western and traditional Asian art to capture the tension between these cultures and explore the beauty of both perfection and imperfection. There is more than one way to speak; I hope that through my work the reticent find a voice, and the articulate learn to hear.
I'd like to thank SMAJAcuration, Shapeshifter Lab and the amazing Jane Sun for this wonderful opportunity to create and showcase work that I truly care about.
