Let’s Heal The Divide
Welcome to Chinatown series
Inkjet Print
2023
40×48 inch (100x122cm) Edition of 9 (+2AP)

Borrowing its title from the neon public art on a Chinatown heritage façade, this work interrogates the “divide” between external perception and internal identity. Today, Chinatown is transitioning—shifting from a necessary sanctuary into a curated cultural hub for artists and “exotic” urban experiences. For me, Chinatown remains a symbol of isolation and a conservative ideological state, raising questions about what is considered “authentic” Chinese culture in the face of the Western gaze.

As a newcomer, I don’t belong to the Chinatown, but people think I belong to Chinatown or somehow connected with Chinatown because I’m Chinese! Quebecois speak French but they deny they are French. Argentines speak Spanish but they deny they are Spanish. Native English speakers are everywhere but they are not the British. Chinese and Chinese culture is the one with a strong centralization will; maybe it is from the long and continuously centralized history.

This work addresses the definition and identity of the Chinese diaspora in a larger context, exploring a symbol of cultural dislocation where one is expected to inhabit a space based solely on an ethnic inheritance.

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