Dong Si Wah (victoria)

"Excuse me, but, where are you actually from?"

Section MS3, Ariel Caine

Keywords: textile, migration, identity, memory, family

This project expresses my complex identity, interweaving my Hong Kong identity and Guatemalan ancestry.

Employing a method of paper tapestry I formed a timeline, drawing on history of Chinese migration and personal family history, and the merging of two cultures: guatemala and hong kong. Divided into 3 chapters, navigating through the gold rush period in 1850, to the time when my great grandfather moved from china to guatemala in 1920: as a tradesman, selling sewing supplies products such as yarns to the Guatemalan community.,; and to the war period during 1935-45, where my great grandfather was moving back and forth between guatemala, china and hong kong, and eventually settling down Guatemala and separated with my grandmother in Hong Kong- contributing to flickering and complex identity that goes back and forth between Guatemala, China and Hong kong during war period.

With the limitation of access to weaving and embroidering facilities at school, I have resolved to weave the patterns with paper. Paper weaving actually works even better because the process was intuitively based and the result is unexpected.