1st 店面 Artist-in-Residence: Melissa Liu 劉慧慈
As Wing On Wo’s inaugural Lunar New Year 店面 Artist in Residence, Melissa Liu created a window installation that was filled with handmade red envelopes (紅包, known as lai see in Cantonese, hong bao in Mandarin) and short-form oral history responses collected from members of Asian Communities in New York City and beyond. In the weeks leading up to Lunar New Year (January 28, 2017), anyone identified with the Asian Diaspora celebrating the Lunar New Year was invited to participate in workshops organized by Melissa in collaboration with The W.O.W. Project, local artists, and community members and groups. Participants had the opportunity to design and make their own red envelopes, in which they placed a question to share with a family member or friend from an older generation and then collected a written response. Participants also received basic training on how to conduct an oral history interview within their community, and had a safe space to discuss issues that Asian communities face in today’s political moment.
In her window display project, which compelled participants to engage in an exchange of questions through shared Lunar New Year traditions, Melissa sparked deeper conversations and moments of empathy between young and older generations that helped bridged intergenerational understanding in Chinatown and Asian American communities and also prompted other Chinatown locals and visitors to consider the importance of the sharing of stories and memories.
Melissa Liu 劉慧慈 is a cultural worker, activist, oral historian, and social sculptor, and a first-generation Chinese American. Melissa has worked as an arts administrator in Los Angeles, Paris, and New York with institutions and organizations such as The Laundromat Project, Columbia University School of the Arts, Hammer Museum, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Terra Foundation for American Art, and The Getty Foundation. She has organized and facilitated workshops for the College Art Association and Kelly Street Garden Bronx, and was part of Arts & Labor and its Alternative Economies working group. She is currently part of the working board of Museum Hue, and a longtime advocate for better representation of communities of color in cultural institutions. As a social sculptor and oral historian, Melissa explores culture, cuisine, identity, and place in the Asian Diaspora through cooking, writing, artmaking.
Through the workshops and conversations I’ve held over the past month, I am conducting oral histories while offering basic training to participants in the hopes that they will be empowered to speak to those within their families and communities, which will lead to moments of empathy that help bridge intergenerational understanding. My longterm goal is for those who have been part of this project to continue creating safe spaces to discuss issues that Asian communities have confronted in the past and face in today’s political moment. The window display at Wing On Wo & Co. is a place to share what has come out of a series of oral history workshops I have held with participants who identify with the Asian Diaspora. Though red envelopes containing money are passed from those of married age and older to younger generations, I have encouraged participants to reverse this exchange by giving their handmade red envelopes to someone from an older generation in their family or community. But rather than money, the red envelope will be exchanged with a question, opening up an opportunity for a conversation to happen.
MORE ABOUT CHINATOWN DIASPORA: Chinatown Diaspora is a collaborative and ongoing project that comes from the idea that “Chinatowns” have existed throughout the world as centers for Asian immigrants to come together in the absence of their home country. In addition to immigrants from provinces throughout China, chinatowns include those from other Asian countries—such as Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. However, children of immigrants often leave these communities with no intention of returning. Chinatown Diaspora explores and unpacks the stories of immigrants who have left their ancestral country, and generations beyond who have left the Chinatown in their new home.
