This body of work is about my identity as an adopted Chinese girl and my lack of interest and knowledge about China. At first I didn’t want to know much about my native culture because I felt that it was irrelevant to me since I live in the United States. Most people who adopt children expect their kids to ask a lot of questions about where they came from, but I was not one of those children. The idea of learning about my heritage didn't appeal to me then and still doesn't interest me. My absence of interest fascinates me as an artist because it’s unusual for someone to not have a desire to learn about where they came from. I want to show my unusual lack of interest in my work by emphasizing my ideas of China and how I see it from my point of view.

My work has a lot of symbolism that references Chinese and Asian culture as a whole. I created this symbolism in one piece using clay and ceramic glaze to show other people how I view myself as a Chinese-American. I made a pile of ceramic fortune cookies and painted them with patriotic colors and set them on top of a white ceramic pedestal. This piece represents the expectations I feel I am raised to because of my ethnicity. This ceramic piece was one of the first pieces to jump-start this body of work and it also received an honorable mention in the Fine Arts Center of Greenville’s annual Student Show.

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I recently was awarded second place in photography from the Fine Arts Center. The piece I created is a representation of the shrines that are built for the gods who are worshipped in Asian. The shrine I created is dedicated to a silver gelatin printed image of a chicken that is installed on a flower-covered shelf. I used flowers and candles to recreate what I think a shrine would look like on the interior. This piece pushed the boundaries of what is considered photography and how it is made.

I wanted to explore Chinese culture from an unknowledgeable point of view that is based off assumptions and stereotypes of China. The reason I use assumptions and stereotypes in my body of work is because the point of view I’m working with doesn’t know any better than to use those assumed qualities. The message I am trying to convey with my work is not the collection of the work itself but what each individual piece is trying to say about China and what I know about the culture from a personal point of view.