Personal mythologies: the heart is a heavy burden (part 1)
Event status:
Guest curator Sophia Cai and exhibiting artists NC Qin and Jia Sung discuss their work – online event
- Date:
- Tuesday 30 August 2022 12:00 pm until Tuesday 30 August 2022 01:30 pm (Add to calendar)
- Contact:
- Amelia Wallin
a.wallin@latrobe.edu.au - Presented by:
- La Trobe Art Institute, Sophia Cai (chair), NC Qin and Jia Sung
- Type of Event:
- Forum/symposium
- Cost:
- Free
Join guest curator Sophia Cai and exhibiting artists NC Qin and Jia Sung as they discuss their work and the exhibition Personal mythologies.
Sophia Cai is a curator and arts writer. She currently teaches as a sessional lecturer in Critical and Theoretical Studies at the VCA, the University of Melbourne. Cai is particularly interested in Asian art histories and the intersections between contemporary art and craft. Her work pursues feminist curatorial methodologies and community building as forms of political resistance. Personal mythologies is her first major exhibition in a regional centre. It explores questions of ‘Asian-ness’ through providing space for diasporic, feminist, lived experiences.
NC Qin (Nancy Yu) explores the histories of ancient battle artefacts, prompting conversations about heritage and values. Appropriating the symbolism of glass and its associated qualities of fragility, risk and preciousness, Qin uses this medium to explore legacies of cultural heritage and question traditional values. Qin’s works allude to real and mythical heroes and weaponry in Chinese history, reinterpreting Chinese myths, such as the epic Romance of the three kingdoms, through a cultural perspective that has been shaped by both Eastern and Western influences.
Jia Sung is an artist and educator. Inspired by Chinese historical textiles and traditions of feminised labour, Sung’s work combines tapestry, embroidery and beadwork with painting. Drawing on motifs from Chinese mythology and Buddhist iconography, Sung uses the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert conventional archetypes of femininity, queerness and otherness. Her approach takes from the Chinese zhiguai tradition, the genre of ‘strange tales’, where the supernatural, the monstrous and the spiritual seep into the tidy confines of ordinary existence and the boundaries of our reality.
Image: Personal mythologies, installation view, La Trobe Art Institute, 2022. Photo: Leon Schoots
Online – please register for the Zoom link
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