On Be(com)ing an Artist, Citizen and Arts Community member, by Christine Wong Yap
Tag Archives: belongingproject
“Compound is a new cultural complex in the heart of the Zaferia district of Long Beach. Compound is dedicated to the intersection of art, wellness and community engagement. It is a new space for culture and community to promote connectivity and belonging.”
Tavares Strachan, You Belong Here, 2014, blocked out neon, 9.1 x 24.4 m, installation view, Prospect New Orleans’ triennial, Prospect, Mississippi River, New Orleans, USA // Source: PublicDelivery.org.
“Strachan’s project was a declarative statement and performance that was entitled You Belong Here. The installation featured a 100-foot neon art piece that would be transported from one location to another on a 140- foot barge on the Mississippi River. The barge that carried the neon piece was made visible from different regions and places throughout New Orleans. It was created to pass on a message to the residents of the city, encouraging the city dwellers to examine themselves and what the city of New Orleans means to them and their futures.”
“Lau’s series of portraits 21st Century Types (2005) reflects the multiplicity of contemporary British society and comments on the Imperialist othering of ‘exotic’ Chinese people and culture. Lau constructed an opulent hybrid Chinese/English portrait studio in Hastings and over six weeks photographed hundreds of passers-by. The resulting images are a monument to place, race, people and the passing of time. The series also acts as a direct statement on the use of photography as unconscious bias, examining the politics of cultural representation and visual ‘archives’ through the genre of contemporary portraiture.”
Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (Manchester, UK), exhibition page for Multiplicites in Flux, October 15, 2020–January 31, 2021.
Still from Eelyn Lee’s Britishness
“Lee’s film Britishness (2019), 57 min, complicates the often indefinable notion of ‘Britishness’. Comprising spoken word poetry, interviews, and group discussions, the work follows young writers from Sheffield as they affirm, reject, and revise their visions of national identity and grapple with the consequences of Britain’s colonial history and their own personal experiences. The film posits ‘Britishness’ as a concept that is constantly in flux, moulded by ever-changing social, economic, political and historical narratives and carrying different significance for each individual. Through this lens, Lee invites viewers to question and re-evaluate their own definition of what it means to be British.”
Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (Manchester, UK), exhibition page for Multiplicites in Flux, October 15, 2020–January 31, 2021.
I first became interested in belonging 2016. In my first project on belonging in 2017, the concept of belonging seemed a little bit abstract and nebulous… Over the years, I’ve noticed belonging pop up more and more, and I think it’s wonderful. Belonging is a deep lens through which many things can be seen: the personal and the political, the subjective and the systematic. I’ll post about art projects and art spaces concerning belonging here on my blog, with tagged #belongingproject.
A collective brainstorm on questions related to “What does belonging mean to you?” produced during the inaugural artist in residency program at the Sanitary Tortilla Factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
