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Exhibitions
Mei Xian Qiu
Mei Xian Qiu is a Los Angeles based artist. She was born in the town of Pekalongan, on the island of Java, Indonesia, to a third generation Chinese minority family. At birth, she was given various names in preparation for societal collapse and variant potential futures, a Chinese name, an American name and an Indonesian name given by her parents, as well as a Catholic name by the local priest. In the aftermath of the Chinese and Communist genocide, the family immigrated to the United States. She was moved back and forth several times between the two countries during her childhood – her parents initial reaction to what they perceived as the amorality of life in the West countered with the un
Exhibition Description
Originally exhibited under the artist's Indonesian name, Suriyani, at the Chinese American Museum, these hanging Chinese rice paper scrolls with life size puppets explored themes of identity, displacement, inclusion, and ultimately of Americanism. Named after the grueling immigrant processing center off the coast of San Francisco, the body of work reinterprets the Island (as it was called by its inmates), from a political, historical perspective, and explores the experiences of the Island’s many Chinese detainees.
The work illustrates the poems of hope, frustration, and longing etched into the barracks’ walls, bedposts, and open surfaces by immigrants from China’s Pearl River Delta.
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