floating roots exhibition introduction

floating roots, pieces of home, the return
project information

Growing up between two cultures, Chinese and English, has had a profound effect on who I am and what I do.  Since I can remember, I have been driven by questions about what it means to connect and to belong, regardless of who one is or where one is from. A journey where one thing leads to another and where all things somehow relate. This past November, a notable opportunity arose. I was invited to exhibit in China, in three different locations.

My father was part of a generation of young Chinese from well-to-do families who were sent abroad to be educated, with the scope to return and contribute to the homeland.

Following his postgraduate studies in 1949, his family advised him to remain in the West,
due to political changes and his marriage to a foreigner. He returned 32 years later. My father carried a deep sadness in him, and even a sense of guilt, that he had not been able to return to his homeland earlier. I grew up with the hidden weight of his longing and was the only one of his immediate family to meet his parents.

My first return to Asia was when I was 17, I went for a year to Taiwan to study Chinese and to live with my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and their four children. It was the first time I met my relatives—a remarkable year of discovery. Later in 2002, I returned with my father to Gulangyu, also known as Kulangsu, a small island off the coast of Xiamen in southern China, also known as Kulangsu. For my father to return to his birthplace was a deeply moving experience. The house where my grandfather lived and where my father was born was still standing, but in a state of abandonment and ruin. It was an important trip for me, anchoring a sense of belonging in which many aspects of my childhood became clear. Both visits had a significant impact on my work. Once again, it was clear to me that by no incidental means had I become an artist. Art was my means to navigate the broad differences in my life.

Early in 2025, the Chinese curator Li Zhenhua, with whom I collaborated for my exhibition On the Edge of Time in Milan, (Villa Arconati FAR, Milan, 2022), introduced me to the curator Ethan Chen and Li Li, the director of Kulangsu Contemporary Art Centre (KCCA). I was invited to exhibit in their museum with Guo Guozhu, a photographer from Xiamen.

Returning to the place of my Chinese family origin, with my work, was a formidable prospect I never would have imagined could happen at this stage in my life.

The Lin Mansion, in the meantime, had been renovated as a boutique hotel and, in 2010, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The family history remains strongly present. When the hotel owner heard I would exhibit at the KCCA museum, I was also invited to create an installation for the Lin’s Mansion Art Space. Returning not only to Gulangyu but also to my great-grandfather’s house was a remarkable event. To live on the grounds, walk in the garden and prepare my exhibition opened new perspectives for my artistic process. What had mostly thrived in my imagination suddenly became concrete—a turning inside out of sorts. The work and the welcome I received were not so much driven by nostalgia, but rather the need to connect. This has been my motivation as an artist since I can remember.

What constitutes my own story dealing with cultural diversity is today a widespread theme.
The challenge of thinking, acting, and responding on multiple levels is part of our world.
Coherence is not obvious. Perhaps this was what made my return feel relevant beyond the personal level. The local people were motivated by my endeavour to return to my roots, not only with a view to the past, but also the present and future.

Alongside the two exhibitions in Gulangyu, Lechbsinka Gallery presented my work in a solo booth at Shanghai West Bund Art Fair. In my recent projects abroad, such as Passage – in the wake of the world (Chambers Fine Art, New York, 2023 and Institute of Contemporary Art, ICA, Miami 2024), I questioned how I could create an exhibition on the other side of the world while minimising shipping. The cost and waste of art packaging is immense. For the China project, I envisioned carrying the body of work myself: a symbolic return transforming the imagined into the tangible.

Searching for a form through which my paintings and installation work could be carried easily, silk came to my mind.
My relation to silk began when I was a small girl. Periodically, packages would arrive from my Chinese family. Amongst the assortment of sweets, Chinese medicine, salted plums and dry Chinese mushrooms, there would sometimes be embroidered silk slippers for me.  Although the slippers were often too small, I loved them: the attention to detail, the balance of colour, the flowers, the insects. In 2008, I started experimenting with printing my paintings on silk to make garments. The idea of wrapping oneself in a painting interested me. Particularly in a time of increasing anonymity towards what we put on our bodies.

I envisioned a multi-purpose artefact that one could wear, hang, cover, bandage, bundle, and carry with you wherever you go. Something soothing and familiar amidst the constant turnover of
goods we consume.

Another aspect of silk that connected to the China project was the historical connection between East and West. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, both Xiamen and Quanzhou were significant ports on the Maritime Silk Road, where their freight ultimately reached Italy.
To re-route and be travelling back east with my cedar silks seemed to mark the times. For the three exhibition locations in China, I created three related installations. The 350 meters of silk I used weighed less than 40 kilos and fit into two suitcases, which travelled with me. The suitcase carried its own metaphor: an image of transience and change, symbolic of my life. Using a selection of my oil paintings printed on various weights of silk, I began shaping this medium into an image of return to my Chinese roots.

My approach to working with silk was to follow the enquiries I employ in my oil painting practice.  Aligning the three-dimensional compositions, lightness and transparency of silk was both interesting and challenging. So delicate as it seems, silk is also tough and, above all, difficult to control. The folding, knotting, cutting, and sewing was surprisingly demanding. The hours of ironing – oddly humbling.  

I did not fully realise the potential of this work until it was hanging. The coming to life of an idea from the folds of this ambiguous material, transforming into an almost cinematic sculpture, was a discovery. Then, to unpeg, refold and repack it into the suitcase – was like the passing of a vivid dream.  And yet it leaves traces. I am not the same person I was before this took place. Perhaps life is always like this.
 
The trilogy of of the exhibitions for China began in Shanghai with meet me in the woods (click for more information)

The project continued to Lin’s Mansion Art Space, Gulangyu, Xiamen, with letters from the mists (click for more information)

And culminated in Kulangsu Contemporary Art Center, Gulangyu, Xiamen, with floating roots, pieces of home, the return (click for more information)