Excavating the Image: Dispersed Connections

A Kahn Institute Short-Term Project

Thursday, April 10 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Friday, April 11 from 1:15 to 6 p.m.

Organizing Fellows

Clara Ma, Smith College Museum of Art
Sujane Wu, East Asian Languages & Cultures

Project Description

The journey of immigrants moving from their homeland to a place of settlement is never a linear movement. Migration, no matter the cause, results in social change that gives rise to tensions between an immigrant’s awareness of the history and places of native culture and the need to cultivate individual modes of expression. Artworks by immigrants embody these tensions and symbolically express bonds with native culture through the themes of temporality, space, memory.

This short-term Kahn project seeks to invite faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to examine a painting and two prints by Hung Liu (1948–2021) to explore various practices of formulating connections by immigrants. Chinese-born artist Hung Liu (1948–2021) immigrated to the United States in the 1980s and was known for working with mediums including paintings, murals, and installation. Originally trained as a socialist realistic painter and muralist, Liu took new approaches to painting after her arrival in the United States. Her paintings often juxtaposed images inspired by historical Chinese photographs with colorful lines and shapes, blurring the boundaries between past and present, personal memories and institutional history.

This project aims to use Hung Liu’s works to examine how memory, temporality, and space are at work in addressing tensions and connections with native culture. What is the status of memory in the art of immigrant communities? How do remembrance and forgetting shape individual relationships to his/her communities? How do traveling, returning to one’s homeland, and accessing archives inform an immigrant's perception of his/her native culture? How are different temporalities negotiated, juxtaposed, and contested in the cultural expressions of immigrant communities?

Fellows will attend a public lecture on Thursday, April 10 by Dorothy Moss ‘95, founding director of Hung Liu’s estate, followed by dinner. On Friday, April 11, the fellows will visit the Smith College Museum of Art, and view The Judgement of Paris (SC 2004.8), Wildflower (SC 2001.23), and Sisters from the portfolio Expanded Vision (SC 2004.8) and consider how Liu utilized historical black-and-white photographs and archival materials to make personal historical narratives. The project will conclude with a roundtable discussion, where fellows will delve further into key terms.

Submit your statement of interest by Thursday, March 6.