Ellen Yeong Gyeong Son

“When I was six, my friends and I had to make coloured glasses with cellophanes in class: red casting over my left eye, while blue over my right eye. The world that we saw through these lenses was affected. It was peculiar to see my friends and teachers moving around with purple bodies that glitched across a spectrum of red and blue. Years later, I moved from Korea to Singapore, then to Australia. The experiences of meeting people from other cultures recalled the experience of my childhood. I realized that my view of other cultures has always been filtered through Korean coloured lenses, and the vision of the world that I once thought ‘normal’ was not everything. In this 21st century globalized world, migrations, advanced technologies and the Internet have blurred the boundaries between cultures and races. In this vague realm, people have become hybrids characterized by multicultural identities that are not bounded by one specific culture.”

Let us all combine, Majulah Moogoonghwa Fair (2018) is series of cellophane banners that explore what it means to be a contemporary cultural hybrid in the 21st century globalized world, and to locate meaning in an indeterminate sense of belonging through a poetic approach. Son engages her different cultural memories and experiences by forming sentences that involve fragments of phonetically translated Korean words, Australian and Singaporean slangs. These texts may result in mistranslation as they may have dual meanings in different cultures; but such mistranslation and grammatical errors illustrate Son's senses of belonging to these cultures are neither definite nor indefinite. The combined imageries from these cultures further demonstrate that Son's identity do not tie in with one specific culture, but exists on the borderlines of these unique cultures. These texts and images make up series of delicate cellophane banners that act as Son's coloured lenses that allow her to restlessly question her identity.

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Let us all combine, Majulah Moogoonghwa Fair (2018) was part of a group exhibition, “The Depth of Simplicity”, curated by Pimpisa Tinpalit as part of Mapping Melbourne Festival:

’The Depth of Simplicity’ presents the works of four contemporary artists based in Melbourne; Annette Chang, Ellen Yeong Gyeong Son, Supina Bytol and Pimpisa Tinpalit. The artworks in this exhibition are inspired by the artists’ life experiences. Utilizing different techniques and mediums, each artist involves themselves deeply in the project by imprinting their own feelings and thoughts and expressing them through visual presentation. ‘The Depth of Simplicity’ is presented in a partnership with the SpAce@Collins to promote high calibre Contemporary Asian art in Victoria.

Proudly supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria