At a moment in time when hope appears but in distant horizons and compassion is held at close watch, it seems tantamount that we nurture a bond between the heart and mind to resist fatigue and pessimism. That being said, I feel an urgency to realize spaces that restores balance to fragmentation and disconnect; spaces that are tolerant, non violent, and kind. Within these spaces, I imagine great possibility; to restore and excite the mind and impassion the heart with question and concern.
To this end, I come with openness and encouragement. I am passionate about fueling a community that populates the world with spirited citizens who step forward without reserve to challenge complacency, hypocrisy and mediocrity.
I draw upon the multiplicity of my lived experience to embark on a path as we breathe, think, live, and make with curiosity. I believe that there is unmeasured value in listening with intent and working without purpose. I am interested in experimentation, process and construction when coupled with thoughtfulness and care. I imagine no formulaic solutions when seeking clarity or resolve.
As a multi-disciplinary visual artist, educator, woman, friend, elder and mother, my world is diverse, expansive, every shifting, and unstable. Perhaps it is a result of my history of immigration and migration that allows me to embrace instability as a normative state.
Having spent much of my life longing to (be) long, I have developed a practice around alterity that refutes convention to make way for alternative affirmations.
My art practice is multidisciplinary, often site-specific, experiential and at times theatrical. My treatment of materials is directed by a culmination of Western theory and Asian sensibilities that manifests in tension and strange juxtapositions. There has always been a resonance of the tactile and ephemeral in my process. In recent years, the challenge to retain these sensibilities while creating works that withstands the rigors of public spaces has brought me to my current consideration of sound and performance work.
In closing, I have had an unquenchable thirst for connectivity to peoples and bodies of knowledge that work in tandem to mobilize wellness for humanity. To that end, I assert the right to play, stumble, fail, laugh, cook, trust, sing, love, share, and celebrate.
Mary Sui Yee Wong
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