Living Room (2020) | Arlington Heights, IL
A site-specific living room that transforms communal space into an intimate setting to facilitate community building in order to live with the pandemic.
Members from the neighborhood participated in the development of this project, including donating their living room objects and offering advice on what kind of space works best for them. The objects are painted on-site, referencing the environment they are in. The work explores the role and responsibility of an outsider into a new community.
Drawn To Strangers (2020) | Chicago, IL
A community-based art project which aims to invite visual dialogues by encouraging the exchange of personal stories as drawings on custom-made postcards in order to connect people living with memory loss with the wider community at Rogers Park.
Four sets of mailboxes were set up at four locations serving older adults in the neighborhood. They were the 49th Ward Aldermanic Services Office, the Loom, the Hamdard Health Center, and the Oat Street Health Center. The fifth set of mailboxes were set up at the PO Box Collective. Each set included two mailboxes, with one labeled “Send to Strangers”, and the another one labeled “Collect from Strangers”. Drawn postcards were collected from the mailboxes and then be responded with drawing. As the pandemic hit, the project has evolved into a virtual platform as a new Facebook page.
A community studio set up in a youth square at the neighborhood for promoting meaningful dialogues and collective healing in response to the social and cultural challenges through art in turbulent times.
Dialogue In Art (2017-2019) | Chai Wan, Hong Kong
The studio is an open and non-judgemental space for residents in the neighborhood to offer accessibility for children, youth, adults and older elders who might not have the privilege and experience in art-making.
Young people came into the studio to share their frustration about the political turmoil; older adults stopped by every morning to share their hope and wisdom for the next generation; children sneaked out from their classes to visit and share their handwritten letters. Collective healing begins from the community itself.
Drawing To Strangers (2017-2019) | Aberdeen & Chai Wan, Hong Kong
A participatory art project inviting strangers to write pictorial letters to the artist, Winnie Wong, another stranger. More than 400 letters were received and replied to children, teenagers, adults and older adults in the period of one year. The mailbox services were expanded to multiple neighborhoods in Hong Kong.
A letter from a 5-year-old girl shared how upset she was because her parents gave all their love to her brother; a teenager’s letter described the massive pressure from her public exam, and the tears filled up the sea in her drawing. Sometimes there would be follow-up letters that urged Winnie to collect the mail quicker when she was away for a few days. Relationship begins from a piece of paper. From a paper, to a letter, to an exchange of conversations, and eventually a distant yet intimate relationship established between two strangers.
A video can be found here.
Ready To Dance For The First Time (2017) | Hong Kong
A participatory public art that examines the fear to try something new for the first time. Set in the background of Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, the installation created space for more than sixty families to make abstract paintings using irregularly-shaped canvases and exhibit in the pop-up gallery.
An interview can be found here.
The Local Palate (2016) | Singapore
Site-specific participatory installation on two public housing buildings located next to the infamous local hawker center in Singapore. A project consists of a hundred canvases painted by two hundred children and older adults from the neighborhood through facilitated workshops about local culture and heritage across eight weeks.