Prosperity portals

This project examines how the moving image can be used as a vehicle of memory, to express what is lost, what is gained and what changes occur in relation to personal family migratory history—a messy and ambiguous process. This practice-led research project investigates video work, using filmed materials and objects, to focus attention on the non-linear aspect of time as it is subjected to individual and collective memories. The outcomes highlight the sometimes disconnecting and unpredictable experiences of migration, storytelling, and memory. This is a specific study of the accounts of my family’s historical connection to land in Southern Malaysia through agricultural practices and the gradual changes and physical disconnection from these practices through migration. Audio recordings compiled from interviews with my family members, alongside digital scans from personal albums and my archive of handheld footage, generate visual/auditory material that reconstruct my family’s migration between China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Australia across three generations. Video montage and collage techniques are utilised to examine what is articulated by diaspora subjects about their ‘homeland’ despite or because of the disjuncture and alterations caused by generations of geographic resettlement. This includes nationality, culture, and language adaptions. The works are located within an analysis of the meaning of diaspora to investigate the moving image as a narrative device that communicates the messy ambiguity inherent in the diasporic experience.