TEAK & BRICKS
Duration: 12:02
Form: Single-Channel Video
Part of an ongoing video art series
“Teak & Bricks” is a project about my own identity as a Mixed-Race Thai- American – the title drawn from the hybrid materials used to build my maternal grandmother's (Thai: Yai) childhood house. Recently, I have begun methodically archiving my own history through conversations with my Yai, with topics ranging from the mundane (the best way to cook rice) to the geopolitical (French colonialism in Laos) to the personal (my great grandfather smuggling gold). As such, this work is a personal exploration of the meals, stories, and eternal care that have inspired the socially-engaged artworks that I make today. Images of my own commute to work flowing through New York harbor pair with audio of our lunchtime conversations, drawing connections between shared waterways, rematriation, and my family's migratory flows.
This work extends beyond myself into my expanded practice of video- based multimedia work that weaves my own personal history around narratives of race, politics, and the geopolitical contradictions embedded in the relationship between American Empire and the Kingdom of Thailand. Altogether, these conversations with my Yai construct a growing assemblage of time-based portraits that center my own personal narratives as seen through the lenses of family, subaltern history, and the poetics of video art.
Collaborator: Suda Sarabanchong
Exhibition: Colonial Currents, Sight/Geist Festival, The 8th Floor