Backtichen Collective curators Cindy He, Youjia Qian and Wanlan Chen present Home|Away : Narratives of Dislocation and Enstrangement.

The exhibition features 20 artworks providing us with diverse perspectives to unpack how the narratives of dislocation and estrangement have (un)associated Asians with the notions of home and away. The narratives of dislocation have been so far celebrated as new adventures and bohemian nomads, overshadowing those painful and unbearable ones to be seen, while the narratives of estrangement invent the otherness by identifying the subjects who fail to stay at the original places as they should be, or who will always be questioned by “where are you from?” 

Can Asians tell our/their own stories about home and away? Nostalgia about foods, families, mother tongues and the scenes of homelands may reshape our/their memories of the places where we/they used to belong. Yet the failure or rejection of connecting the memories back to these places reveals those unspoken factors that have made our/their journeys of being away. By collaging every individual story together, the exhibition aims to not only unlearn the “common sense” imposed on Asians, but also touch on the invisible discourse to reconsider how “Asian” has been generalised as an abstract figure.

- Youjia Qian

Participating artists: Bing Zheng,  Dahai Zhang,  Duong Thuy Nguyen, Eleanor Sanghara, Jiachun Hu, KV Duong, Maggie Wen, Natalie Sasiprapa Organ, Orlen Su Nin Crawford, Patarita Tassanarapan, Seongeun Lee, Tianyi Shi, Unamed Collective, Wanxiao Chen, Wuchao Feng, Yijia Wu, Yinglin Zhou, Yue Yin and Zhaocheng Xiong. 

Exhibition poster designed by Wanlan Chen