Echoes Of Passage

Echoes of Passage brings together the works of two artists, both born and raised in China, who use their respective mediums to explore the complex, often disjointed experiences of immigration and its profound impact on identity, materiality, and artistic expression. Through installations that reflect personal journeys, Jia and Melanie navigate the intersections of displacement, adaptation, and belonging, offering viewers an intimate glimpse into their reflections on the immigrant experience.

Jia’s work reveals a fragmented, tactile exploration of the immigrant body and mind, shaped by cultural dislocation and adaptation. Utilizing undyed leather scraps, various types of clay, and surgical equipment, her installation creates a visceral narrative of separation, reconstruction, and resilience. At the heart of her work is a stitched patchwork of leather scraps, symbolizing a body piecing itself back together in a search for stability and belonging. Adjacent to this central piece, an opening filled with a mixture of clay and torn pages from the Oxford English Dictionary—interspersed with surgical scissors—highlights the challenges of linguistic adaptation and cultural negotiation. Clay, a malleable and transformative material, becomes a metaphor for human adaptability, while the torn dictionary pages signify the struggle to assimilate within a new linguistic and cultural framework. Through the surgical implements, Jia draws parallels between her rushed problem-solving as an immigrant and the swift, invasive procedures of surgery. This contrasts with her preference for holistic healing, akin to traditional Chinese medicine, where balance and interconnectedness are emphasized. Twisted clay forms resembling digestive organs further deepen this dialogue, symbolizing the emotional and bodily transformations inherent to immigration.

In Melanie’s installation Homeland’ | Class of Admission, the personal becomes poetic, as she reflects on a decade-long journey of studying, working, and living in the United States. Using 25 pages of text from her USCIS immigration documents, Melanie prints words onto transparent film and submerges them in water-filled stainless steel trays. As air bubbles form and obscure the text over time, the work speaks to the impermanence and fluidity of memory and identity. Water—a symbol of purity, time, and transience—transforms the legal language into a dynamic, reflective medium, while the surgical tone of the trays echoes themes of scrutiny and vulnerability. Concrete bricks support each tray, symbolizing the slow, deliberate construction of a life away from home, built step by step. By arranging these elements on the floor, Melanie invites viewers to bend down, confronting the text and its watery reflections in a humble, intimate act of engagement. This posture mirrors the artist’s own journey—one marked by resilience and a continual negotiation of identity within shifting cultural landscapes.

Together, Jia and Melanie’s works navigate the interplay between physicality and ephemerality, creating a shared space to reflect on the deeply personal yet universally resonant experience of immigration. Through their distinct yet complementary approaches, they invite audiences to contemplate how material and memory intersect in the search for belonging.