Chinese American Arts Council - Cindy Leung

Client:

Cindy Leung

Year:

2023

"To Go" by Cindy Leung.

To Go examines the complex relationship between consumerism, colonization and cultural hybridity. Cindy Leung chooses to use Chinese exports- silk, tea and porcelain primarily in her work because they originated in the East and were popularized in the West through trading and British colonization. She considers these materials to be a part of her identity, given that she was born and raised in Hong Kong. Each hybrid object is named with a verb and a Chinese character to hint at the Chinese computer input system Sucheng, the bilingual education the artist grew up in, as well as to show the interactions of the materials. The use of mixed materials and their interactions are symbols to represent the relationship between the two cultures. By making hybrid objects with these specific materials, the artist sees her work as a way to create a visual manifestation of the hybridity in her identity and in her language.