About
Using my lens as a second-generation immigrant, I consider how diasporic bodies are defined, categorized, and assigned power. I explore my own identity as someone who is a Chinese-American, a Southerner, and a daughter of refugee parents. Navigating the space between these identities means negotiating between assimilation and heritage, belonging and otherness, and exploring the rifts between archival documentation and oral histories.
I am interested in how the schisms between all these opposing elements challenge and broaden how second-generation immigrants—like myself— understand their cultural roots. The drawings employ fragments to form a visual whole, borrowing from the hodge-podgy visual language of diasporic culture. This work raises questions about the tug-and-pull nature of belonging—
How can one "assimilate" while embracing one’s heritage?
How do the ruptures between historical documentation and lived memory challenge America’s imperialist legacy?
And lastly, how can one reframe and expand on what it means to belong?
Ming earned her BFA from the University of Kentucky and her MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. Currently, she is an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).