Under the Same Sun with Edge on the Square

September 30th, 2023

Chinatown’s 2nd Annual Contemporary Arts Festival

Photos by Edge on the Square, Joyce Xi and Henrik Kam.

凤凰我爱你, To See and Be Seen, To Love and Be Loved

凤凰我爱你, To See and Be Seen, To Love and Be Loved
2023
18 in x 19 in x 27 in h
Ceramic, glaze

The Phoenix is perhaps one of the most known and auspicious of Chinese mythological beings. Its rare appearance is foretelling of harmony and played a key role in the creation of the cosmos. The Phoenix also represents immortality and both masculine and feminine qualities, transcending gender binaries and moving through time, space and lifetimes. My Phoenix has my partner’s top surgery scars, and has intentional detailed cracks where I removed and replaced the chest as a ritual part of creating this piece.

慢慢, slow

In ancient Chinese mythology, the tortoise with the snake wrapped over its shell is one of four symbolic creatures each pointing in a different direction. As a starting point for creating my queer take on Chinese mythology, I began with the snake and turtle, the north. While I significantly altered the symbolic creatures of each of the other directions, I chose to keep this one the same - a turtle and a snake signifying the element of water; and of stability, happiness and longevity. I added a bottle of testosterone in the mouth of the turtle, and carved on its back “我爱你。你是我的宝贝。” (I love you. You are my treasure.)

慢慢, slow
2023
20 in x 20 in x 13 in h
Ceramic, glaze

合家平安 May our family be safe and peaceful.

In Chinese mythology, the toad symbolizes fertility, immortality, wealth, and connection to other worlds. The toad is often correlated with creation myths. A toad with coins is a common feung shui symbol, known for drawing wealth into a space. On the chest of the lower toad is a symbol for longevity, carved into the chest as armor. A smaller toad sits on top of the bottom toad, and the two share a tongue, referencing queerness and the mating position of frogs. On the coins in this piece, I carved 合家平安, a four character Chinese saying and one that includes the character for my name, 安. I used the character 合 rather than 阖 because the latter references someone else family, while the former references one’s own family. Together, the characters wish one’s own family safety from harm and peace. Typically this is placed near or above one’s entryway. I have one in my home that hangs on my doorknob, gifted to me on the lunar new year by my mother.

合家平安 May our family be safe and peaceful.
21 in x 20 in x 20 in h
Ceramic, glaze

蚕王 (silkworm deity)

A celestial silkworm deity, part of a new series of queered Chinese folk deities.

蚕王 (silkworm deity)

2023

28” L x 7” W x 30” H

Ceramic, glaze

a thin and rather transparent protective casing, a transformative shell, a mother; womb

A porcelain piece that explores the cocoon as a womb, a mother. Silkworms burst from holes in the cocoon. Shells of smaller cocoons are stuck to and spill off of the sides of the cocoon. The cocoon is glazed with a traditional light blue-green celadon. Written on the sides of the cocoon in drippy characters and textured glaze is the word "mama" in Chinese.

a thin and rather transparent protective casing, a transformative shell, a mother; womb

2022

12” x 12” x 48”

porcelain, glaze, epoxy

Miasma (a looming materialization)

In San Francisco 1899 to 1901, bubonic plague caused an epidemic in the city, though health officials often falsely traced all epidemic outbreaks to Chinatown. Chinese people were already seen as “a social, moral and political curse to the community.” (San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Municipal Reports 1876-1877).  California’s Governor Gage denied the plague for 2+ years and signed several gag orders. Meanwhile police officers created a patrolled border between Chinatown and the rest of the city, keeping its 25,000 to 30,000 mainly Chinese residents inside. The State Board of Health printed a report in 1901 denying the existence of the disease. During the lockdown, all Asian immigrants were restricted from travel, cutting off 20,000 residents from employment, food, and resulting in many deaths.

Miasma (a looming materialization) 

2022

Porcelain, contaminated glaze

30 x 19 x 14

Celestial Beings, Celestial Bodies

“Through a practice based in ceramics, research, and performance, Lee creates objects and installations that excavate Cantonese histories related to the origins of the silk trade and their continued resonances in the diaspora. During their studies at UC Berkeley this has included raising silkworms from eggs and stretching their spun cocoons. Lee’s sculptures and collages pursue archival threads that reveal the ugliness of racism behind the veneer of Oriental fetishes and open up space for queer narratives and ways of being within history. As a queer nonbinary Cantonese person of Sunwui (Xinhui) descent, Lee has been able to reframe their own history and biography through their research in a way that gratifies a yearning to see their experiences in both the past and the future….” -Claire Frost for the Berkeley Art Museum, 2022

Each orb or lantern has different textures meant to speak to differing bodies perhaps of contamination, and of beauty. The inside crackle clear glaze reminiscent of veins or perhaps threads of a cocoon. Each piece shows varying patterns that occur in silkworm cocoons when viewed under a microscope. 

“The centerpiece of Lee’s installation is a string of porcelain lanterns suspended from the ceiling. By swapping the traditional lantern material of paper or silk for ceramic, Lee made the lanterns, which are symbolic of hopeful wishes for the future, both more permanent and more fragile in their objecthood. The delicacy and enduring quality of the lanterns mirror the histories and hopes of Cantonese immigrants depicted in the photocollage on the wall behind the lanterns. With images from the Bancroft Library collections, community, and online archives, mixed with photographs of Lee’s own family, it is impossible to determine which images come from each source––a construction that mirrors Lee’s experience of finding family histories so much like their own in the archive. The lantern silhouette form of the collage is printed on silk that moves gently behind the hanging sculpture bringing the histories Lee mines into the present while looking forward to the potential in their reimagining.” -Claire Frost for the Berkeley Art Museum, 2022

Celestial Beings, Celestial Bodies
2022
Porcelain, glaze, mother-of-Pearl, artist’s blood, organza silk, ink, bamboo, mulberry paper

sieve

A woven porcelain sieve, modeled after bamboo sieves. Bamboo sieves are as sifting or straining devices, for example to rinse or dry fruits or vegetables. Sieves are also used to raise silkworms, in order to separate the domesticated and sensitive silkworms from their feces so that they do not get sick. A sieve can also be thought of as a screen, symbolizing the domesticity of both raising silkworms and the domestication of silkworms. Contaminated green glaze is used on the porcelain sieve, in opposition to the use of the sieve.

sieve
36 x 36 in
porcelain, contaminated glaze
2021

cocoon (performance for SOMArts), 2021

“Cocoon” is a 45-minute ceremony performed by Jas Lin and Kyoko Takenaka underneath Ahn Lee’s sculpture of the same title. Exploring grief through the container of a cocoon, the performers embody ancestry and progeny, railroad worker and Chop Suey circuit nightclub dancer, silkworm and moth, light and shadow, as they move through non-linear cycles of metamorphosis between the simultaneous truths of trauma, pain, freedom, and joy in their lineage.

pupae

Porcelain paper clay, a substance usually used for its ability to be thin and strong, is shaped into surgical masks and messily thrown into bulging pupae-like shapes. The objects look thick, heavy, and are hung by dock line, used to anchor boats. Whereas the dock line would usually be anchored with a boating hitch or other knot, this line is tied into a pan chang knot - a lucky Buddhist symbol.

Pupae (series)
Porcelain paper clay, underglaze wash, nylon dock line.
Various dimensions
2021

Cocoon, 2020

Lifecycle, 2021

Guangdong: Against All Odds, 2019

Dark Mode, 2019

A Hungry Ghost, 2019

Gold Mountain, 2019