In FengyanFengyang'sic research, she was inspired by her family'family'sra narrative. She found that this memory not only exists within my family but also as a collective memory in Southeast China: the painful memories of separation due to political reasons.
In her childhood, family memories were always intertwined with traditional cuisine and fermented food. This unique lens of fermented food led her to ponder the relationship between the diasporic southern Chinese people and food. Is it possible to rethink the diaspora from the perspectives of fermented food, foodways, and sensory experience? Due to fermented food's distinctive smell and taste, olfactory senses are more effective than visual ones in triggering clear and emotionally rich memories.
During her field research, interviewees often shared their diasporic stories through sensory memory. Fermentation installations, handmade materials, and video are the mediums through which she expresses her artistic practice. She intends to engage all five/six senses to capture and recollect the rich emotional moments of the past.
Sketch of six senses
"We question the meaning of our origin and our primitive senses"
<Sensing Earth, Cultural Quests Across a Heated Globe>
Fabric is an essential step in filtering fish sauce. The author silkscreens the places where fish sauce recipes appear in Southern China and Southeast Asia to speculate on her ancestor's migration footprint.
The handmade bricks are made from sea sand, seawater, dirt, fish sauce, and cement. When combined with a microphone, recorder, and amplifier, they amplified the fish sauce drips.
The fermented fish sauce in the "Weather Chamber." The chamber could stimulate the "climate" of the author's hometown and aim to ferment the "hometown flavor.
