-preview for an upcoming project-

suburbia, religion, escape, queer identity

2016-2017

During my residency at Markham Public Libraries, I worked with the residents in Markham to create a video installation titled here-there. At the time, I was a resident of suburban Markham and I was interested in what escapism looked like for other residents. The residency took place in the summer and many families were leaving the suburbs to spend time in Toronto, other nearby cities or out of the country. What were Markham residents escaping to? What did vacationing look like for them? For those that stayed in Markham for most of the summer, the library was a place for exploration and escape. Many residents participated in making these videos and found that creating these videos gave them a sense of escape.

I held video making workshops throughout the summer at all 7 Markham Public Library branches. Participants were encouraged to film a 10 second video of them acting out what vacationing looked like to them. The video was imported into an app called Draw on Video Square and participants had the opportunity to draw on imaginary backgrounds, subjects and objects in their video. I collected all the videos and transformed them into GIFS. The videos were then tiled together into a grid and were displayed at Markham Public Library branches in early 2017. 

To view all the videos, please visit http://here-there-project.tumblr.com/. 
To hear my talk about the Internet Art and the here-there project, please visit here.

Just Relax was a site specific installation exhibited at Incline Gallery, San Francisco. It was made to create an illusion of an extended entrance hallway to a dystopic portal. The images used in the installation were photographs of flora and fauna taken in Hawaii. They were used to simulate an "ideal" meditation retreat space in a cyber world but the glitches remind the audience that like all retreats, they're only temporary. 

Aquarium in Martin Wong is a site specific installation piece exhibited at the Martin Wong Gallery in San Francisco State University. A photo of the gallery was taken and transformed into an indoor aquarium. Then, it was projected back into the same space in the gallery.

MMVI are a series of GPS tracks outlining nonexistent vacation islands on Google Earth. The islands take the shape of objects that are often associated with vacation such as bikinis, martini glasses and tennis rackets. 

Pool Party is an installation that drew inspiration from resorts and cruise ship tours in Florida. I created my own overindulgent vacation room with bubble wrapped plants, white plastic lawn chairs, dollar store flower leis, popcorn seashell necklaces, a recycling bag pool and a glitchy backdrop of a pretty pool studded with digital edited palm trees. 

@Digi-Land is an installation piece that involved a series of looped animations, a video (Surfing the Web), a camera, tripod, artificial grass and a looped track of Hawaiian ukulele music overlaid with sounds of birds and waterfalls. Audience members were able to walk through the space and use the camera to capture this artificial "landscape" as if it was a lookout point. 

I was interested in creating a cyber landscape that existed in the physical world. Images used in the looped animations were screenshots of social media icons and 1960s-1980s National Geographic photos of flora. The social media icons represents how our society enjoys actively sharing our vacation travel  photos on online social platforms. 

An ongoing collection of collaged looped animations that illustrates an ideal imaginary space.