Contemporary Art

Rachel Bridges explores her Filipino and newly discovered Chinese heritage through painting, using family photos, public archives, and historical sources to reconstruct her family’s past. As a second-generation Filipina American, Bridges was unaware of her Chinese ancestry until recently, despite subtle clues like the use of Chinese spices in her family’s Philippine meals. Through this exhibition, she examines colonial influences and the impact of lost histories on personal identity.

Stockholm-based artist Lap-See Lam presents “Tales of the Altersea” (2023), an immersive video installation inspired by the ruins of a dragon-shaped ship visible from her art school studio. The ship, which sailed from Shanghai to Gothenburg in 1990 intending to serve Chinese cuisine to European patrons, was eventually abandoned. Lam’s work explores themes of loss, memory, and resilience, utilizing the vessel’s history as a narrative foundation.

This exhibition showcases works by Asian diasporic artists that explore the process of unmaking and remaking the self. Focusing on art as a site of radical reimagination, the exhibition presents a cross-generational conversation about the liberatory possibilities inherent in the continuous, messy, and sometimes contradictory process of forming social identity.