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A Cross-Pacific Effect (2022)
Selected text accompanying Chinese American immigrant artifacts. These text was included in the installation held by structures made up with same chemical materials as human bone: calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, citric acid, water, and gelatin.
In 1906, Nge Shee Lee packed her clothes and belongings in this trunk and left China for America. It was a difficult trip. She slept next to the noisy engine room; arriving tired and sick in San Francisco she was met by the devastating 1906 earthquake. After she was rescued by an unidentified American firefighter. Nge Shee then made her way alone by train across Canada to New York where she rejoined her husband.
In 1908, Mei Li Chun ate this jar of embossed bean cake for breakfast, she bought it from the Quong Yuen Sing & Co. in San Francisco, California. As the first thing she ate in America, she had diarrhea for two weeks, the jar was later given to an unidentified American doctor for examination.
The 1876 United States silver trade dollar was passed from Fen Lee to an unidentified young American merchant in exchange for a bottle of milk for her sick daughter. Not knowing English. She stamped the silver coin three times with "chopmarks" to prove the coin was real silver.
The 1905 reward poster of Hai Hong Ching, also known as Hai Hong Zhang, who was wanted for the murder of an unidentified American Sheriff. The warrant described her eyes in a wrong way so she was never arrested for the murder. It wrote: left eye more open than the right. She died from breast cancer at an old age.
In 1906, Nge Shee Lee packed her clothes and belongings in this trunk and left China for America. It was a difficult trip. She slept next to the noisy engine room; arriving tired and sick in San Francisco she was met by the devastating 1906 earthquake. After she was rescued by an unidentified American firefighter. Nge Shee then made her way alone by train across Canada to New York where she rejoined her husband.
In 1908, Mei Li Chun ate this jar of embossed bean cake for breakfast, she bought it from the Quong Yuen Sing & Co. in San Francisco, California. As the first thing she ate in America, she had diarrhea for two weeks, the jar was later given to an unidentified American doctor for examination.
The 1876 United States silver trade dollar was passed from Fen Lee to an unidentified young American merchant in exchange for a bottle of milk for her sick daughter. Not knowing English. She stamped the silver coin three times with "chopmarks" to prove the coin was real silver.
The 1905 reward poster of Hai Hong Ching, also known as Hai Hong Zhang, who was wanted for the murder of an unidentified American Sheriff. The warrant described her eyes in a wrong way so she was never arrested for the murder. It wrote: left eye more open than the right. She died from breast cancer at an old age.
↑ Image installed on the ceiling of the gallery
↓ Installation view in the South Gallery, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.
