Audrey Chan

The objects in the Chinese collection of the USC Pacific Asia Museum reminded me of the decorations around my childhood home in the Midwest. I was drawn to the idea of taking these precious objects out of the museum context and  placing them into vernacular and diasporic narrative scenes. I created this “memory-paper” to serve as a repository for memories—and anxieties—from my inherited and assembled Chinese and Taiwanese American identity. Initially taking inspiration from The World Journal (世界日报), the largest newspaper serving the Chinese diaspora in North America, the project also draws upon my early obsession with the Chicago Tribune’s funny pages, editorial cartoons, and graphic novels, which continue to influence my drawing language. Given the underrepresentation of the Asian diaspora in mainstream American culture, it was an exercise in creating media in my own image, an indulgent and necessary act of self-preservation.

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Featured in the exhibition Intervention: Fresh Perspectives After 50 Years at the USC Pacific Asia Museum.