A Taste of Inheritance, 2023.

Table and chair installation with paintings made of tea on fabric, transfer paper on fabric, and audio. Total duration: 

Part of Asana Bina Seni Biennale Yogyakarta 2023.

Every morning, the bitter unsweetened tea my mother prepares sits within the huge enamel jug on the dining table. It is a taste I know so familiarly, one that causes me to remind every tea-seller I visited in Java to omit sugar from my order. In Java, sugar in a glass of tea is an inherited symbol of prosperity. Yet for me, my inheritance is my preference for its absence, for its bitterness. Just like the inherited bitter stories shared around the dining table. Or the absence of wealth my family has lived with as first generation working-class immigrant.

My inheritance stands in contrast with the state-created image of the Chinese Indonesian: a problem that hampers indigenous economy and rich economic animals. The stories of our lives, as well as the lives of all of the working class Chinese Indonesians, reassert ourselves in history in a way that disrupts stereotypes and generalizations.