Mary Sui Yee Wong

[升,竹升] Presented in 2010 as a live-streaming performance between Montreal artist Mary Sui Yee Wong and renowned Vancouver musician Master Toa Wong. By invoking a childhood fantasy of becoming a pop star with an irrational fear of singing, Wong worked in tandem with her father to create a piece that embraced the complexities of intergenerational communication, acculturation, and hybridization.

The title is a wordplay on “juk sing” [竹升]; literally translated as “hollow bamboo” and is term to refer to overseas-born Chinese who straddle between two cultures. By combining the word “sing” [升] (to rise or ascend) with “juk sing”, a new term is created. Highlighting the relationship between father and daughter, visual artist and musician, community elder and community activist, the collaborators play with music, image, translation, memory to give resonance to his/herstory of disappointment and fear; fear of not belonging, not measuring up, not connecting and/or not being remembered.