Golden Mountain, 2022
Opening Reception: April 26, 2022, 5 - 8 PM
UCLA DMA Graduate Gallery
Golden Mountain (2022) is a thought experiment that considers how physical places and spatial information can be abstracted into symbols and icons. Inspired by a family photograph that fed into an idealized representation of the U.S., this work reflects upon media, histories, and landscapes that have shaped the mythos of America.
The title of this work references both the U.S. toponym given by the Chinese following the discovery of gold fields in San Francisco, and the famed amusement park in Valencia, CA. This work approaches the U.S. as a themed consumer environment underwritten by powerful advertising, economics, and media to construct the desirable fantasy of American culture. Through an unconventional narrative structure, Golden Mountain cuts archival and found footage with personal narrative to illustrate how the diasporic Chinese-American experience is often supplemented with research and imagination when memories carried across geopolitical borders are withheld, altered, or forgotten.
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