Work Sample #1

heavens have one sun; mortals have one way
天无二日，人无二理
Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture,
University of Tennessee Knoxville
multimedia
sizes variable
2023

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This multimedia installation employs handmade papers and animations to remix ancient Chinese characters, appropriated instructional materials, and diagrammatic family portraits. Through this work, I re-enroll myself in my past education to re-consider and re-create what it means to be a child. The sign “child” is shared by the Chinese words in this work and conveys various meanings when combined with different signs.

Work Sample #2

to raise / to discard
handmade paper (abaca and pigmented cotton) and animation projection
sheet: 23 x 15 inches
video: 04:39 run time (looping)
provided video documentation (excerpt): 01:00 min (please view in full)
2023

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This piece explores two interconnected Chinese Seal Script words: “to raise” and “to discard,” made of an upside-down “child” and “flesh” or "bamboo basket,” respectively. The physical “child” is made of paper. The animation beneath her mutates between the “flesh” and “bamboo basket.” Will she be nurtured or abandoned? The answer shifts constantly. 

Work Sample #3

Scene of the Crime
vinyl and animation projection
vinyl: 12 x 27.5 inches
video: 00:35 run time (looping)
provided video documentation (full): 00:32 min (please view in full)
2023

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Life is a precious gift to be grateful for, I was taught. Yet I witnessed—sometimes vicariously—how a child can be abandoned so easily, like a leaf blowing in the wind. Infant abandonment is not only an age-old cultural practice in China but is also present in several generations of my family. 

Work Sample #4

Refrain in Three Parts
plywood, projection-mapped animation, and sound
installation: 75 × 132 inches
video: 04:48 run time (looping)
provided video documentation (full): 04:48 min (please view until 01:30)
2025

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This project intertwines sculpture, projection-mapped animation, and sound to explore the re-formation of cultural memory. Structured in three couplets, the installation layers image and music—composed by Rodrigo Camargo and performed by Hannah Guzman (soprano) and David Oosse (vibraphone)—to reflect the intertwined processes of learning, forgetting, and reimagining language.

Each of the three couplets reframes recurring motifs: childhood vulnerability, linguistic uncertainty, and the unlearning of harmful values. The title suggests musical repetition and three metaphorical voices: the child, the immigrant, and the reconciled self. Together, sound and image invite viewers to reflect on adaptation, estrangement, and acceptance as layered processes.

Work Sample #5

Edges Left Open
handmade paper (pigmented cotton and abaca blend, cotton, abaca, and flax pulp paint)
126 × 69 inches (twelve panels, tiled)
2026

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The largest piece from a period when my stencils, first cut to form Chinese characters, had stopped carrying words and become shapes. It wasn't planned as a twelve-sheet image. I formed four sheets, tiled them, and worked the seams with pulp paint, leaving open the edges that would meet paper I hadn't made yet. Then I added sheets until there were twelve.

Work Sample #6

Home, for Now
ceramics (red clay)
7 × 17 × 8 inches (irregular)
2026

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A shell, after the hermit crabs that carry a home until they find a better one and leave the old one behind. I include it as an example of my sculptural work.

Pressed & Played, in progress

Pressed & Played score (mock-up, yet to be recorded by musicians)
Rodrigo Camargo
audio: 01:42 run time (looping)
provided audio (full): 01:42 min (please listen in full)
2026