In the series “An Unfamiliar Place”, I investigate the dichotomy between what is essential and what is excessive from a Chinese-Canadian perspective. Inspired by my own experience relocating from Taiwan to Canada, each photograph depicts miniature blank figurines traveling through a foreign landscape made out of food products. The miniature figurines immersed in massive raw and processed food sceneries serve as a metaphor for mass production and excess. The triptych, “Ginger, Rice and Fish” symbolizes the eastern motherland, China. As the figurines leave their familiar homeland and entering into a foreign landscape, the objects that comprise their surrounding shift from a distinctive Asian palette to an iconic Western one. This transformation emphasizes the sense of lost and wonder foreigners experienced when they first set foot in North America. “An Unfamiliar Place” is a series exploring the idea of a cultural journey, diaspora identity and displaced landscape, which at times appear menacing and absurd and above all unfamiliar.
