Immigration is a complex and emotional subject that has shaped global debates about national identity and other concerns, taking a restrictive turn amidst today’s political stresses. In this climate, crossing the threshold into citizenship is a transformative and challenging process for the immigrant, who exists on the margins of the collective national self as a supplicant other. “Alter-liminal” addresses this liminal space of the immigrant. The socially-engaged work transforms a tool of qualification for U.S. citizenship by turning multilingual pages of the 100 Civic Questions test into cordage (twine), which is then transfigured into artifacts of symbolic protection, comfort, or purification, such as head dress, mantle, blanket, or whisk broom. These talismanic artifacts offer a transformative private space that alters the alterity of the participant, by charging it with the power of multiple possibilities in liminality, and reconstituting the authoritative American narrative into tangible materiality on a personal scale. The artifacts will be activated in historic Ross Alley during the festival. In a series of transformations, the project reshapes gatekeeper test questions into talismans for belonging and for reclaiming personal sovereignty.

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About Rene Yung

Rene Yung is an artist, writer, cultural activist, and designer, whose transdisciplinaryworks connect people, place, and history,  to articulate the hidden and give form to the overlooked. Founder of Chinese Whispers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to giving voice to the under-told history of the Chinese in the American West, Rene has collaborated with institutions including the Stanford Archaeology Center; exhibited at international and national venues including TransCulture, part of the 46th Venice Biennale, the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, and San Jose Museum of Art; and completed public art commissions including from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Awards include grants from the California Arts Council, Creative Work Fund, and Humanities California, an Urban Fellowship at the Exploratorium, and residencies including at Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Center for the Arts, and Hedgebrook Writers Residency. A graduate of Stanford University, Rene is a native of Hong Kong, now transplanted in San Francisco.

 

Rene Yung 榮美立，另類過渡，編織異類

移民是一個複雜而又令人充滿情緒反應的題目，塑造了全球對國家身份和其他關注的辯論，在今日的政治壓力下轉向狹隘。面臨當前氣氛，跨過入籍門檻對移民來說是個轉化人生且充滿挑戰性的過程。他們作為懇求的他者，活在國家集體自我的邊緣。《另類過渡》正是回應移民這個過渡空間的作品。本作介入社會，轉化一項美國入籍資格的工具，將多國語言版的 100 道公民考試題目扭成細繩，再改頭換面製成象徵保護、安慰或淨化的工藝品，例如頭飾、斗篷、被子或是撣掃。這些護身符般的工藝品提供了一個讓人轉化的私人空間，過渡當中無盡的可能性賦予它力量，將美國權威性的敘事，重組成個人規模的有形物質，藉此改變參加者的異類感。藝術節期間，這些工藝品將會在充滿歷史感的舊呂宋巷展出。本項目透過一系列的轉化過程，重塑用於篩選的試題，變成關乎歸屬感和重奪個人主權的護身符。

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Rene Yung 榮美立 是藝術家、作家、文化行動者和設計師，其跨學科作品連結人、地方，以及歷史，使隱藏的被看見、被忽略的清晰可辨。Rene  創辦非牟利團體「華裔悄悄話（Chinese Whispers）」，致力讓人聽見鮮少述說的美國西部華人史，曾合作的機構包括史丹福考古中心；亦曾參與多個國際及國內展覽，如 TransCulture、第  46 屆威尼斯雙年展、休士頓當代藝術博物館及聖荷西藝術博物館；並完成多項公共藝術作品，包括三藩市藝術委員會委託創作的項目。曾獲加州藝術委員會、Creative Work Fund 及 Humanities California 頒發獎助金，以及 Exploratorium 探索博物館都市學人獎。曾擔任Headlands藝術中心和 Montalvo藝術中心的駐場藝術家，以及 Hedgebrook 駐場作家計劃。 Rene 畢業於史丹福大學，於香港土生土長，現已遷居三藩市。