Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall

As a Chinese-Australian artist, with multi-generational history in Australia since 1884, my practice focuses on continuing research into the nuances of the relationship between the individual and place, through ‘site-specific art’ practices (Kwon, 2002). My research asked ‘How can Chinese-Australian diasporic ancestry be represented through site-specific art practices? In traditional Chinese culture, the ancestral village is associated with a family clan over many generations, with an ‘ancestral hall’, a building to commemorate the ancestors. I was able to identify Siew Chek Hum, Doumen, Guangdong, China, as our ancestral village, containing three Wong ancestral halls, all interconnected. As part of the diaspora, I created a Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall (2024) symbolic of my spiritual home, as a mobile sculptural entity. In my physical home of Mount Corhanwarrabul (aka Mt Dandenong), I took part in ‘On Country/In Residence’ a walking residency led by Wurundjeri artist Mandy Nicholson on the newly established ngurrak barring (Mountain Path). Taking my Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall, I performed the act of walking on my physical home whilst carrying my ancestral home, an attempt to metaphorically bring two concepts of home and together. Outcomes of this research were a series of artworks 1. Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall, mixed media sculpture, 2. The Convergence of my Home/s, photograph 3. Experiencing Tikilara, mixed media scroll works responding to the residency. These three works were shown at the exhibition ngurrak-al marram-u (Body of the Mountain) at the Burrinja Cultural Centre, Upwey co-curated by Mandy Nicholson, Gretel Taylor and Gulsen Ozer.