UC Irvine

This creative thesis work explores the meaning of home and exile, of tradition and renewal, of storms, salted fish, glutinous rice, banana leaves; of plastic, concrete, rust, lichens; of alleys, of narrow or wide, of dim or brightly lit, of the abandoned, the forgotten and the cacophonous bustling, the haunted/ancient and the modern and commercial; of simple flowing fabric and drapes, colored of the ground, the soil, shadowed leaves; of repetitive motions, picking off of edible leaves and breaking of stems into small segments, the setting of the altars to departed ancestors, incense, rice, fruits each morning; Of translation, and mediation, of words and songs and rituals, of their origins and their histories, their transmigrations, the people who carried them and gave them new life in a new place; Of hope and possibility for a new beginning that continuous and conscious of the past.