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Ground Zero: Silicon Valley BUZZ IN QUESTION Flo Oy Wong by Todd Inoue |
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| Growing up in Oakland’s Chinatown, Flo Oy Wong worked at her parents’ restaurant and aspired to be a schoolteacher. When that goal was reached, she pursued a long-suppressed desire to become an artist. At age 40, Wong was lured to multimedia art-using rice, rice sacks, Chinese funeral paper, sewing thread, beads and found objects. Now 61, Wong exhibits on the local, national and international levels. She won a 1997-1998 Arts Council Silicon Valley award for her art piece “My Mother’s Baggage: Paper Sister/Paper Aunt/Paper Wife.” Her latest installation. “made in usa: Angel Island Shhh,” uses U.S. flags embellished with rice sacks, pictures, beads and thread. Each flag tells one person’s story of harsh, shameful conditions when passing through the Angel Island detention center. The exhibition opens in June on Angel Island. A trustee of the Arts Council Silicon Valley, Wong, who lives in Sunnyvale, was featured on Showtime’s documentary series “American Tapestry.” The episode will be screened be Cinequest at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 26 at Camera 3 and March 4 at the Towne theater. For Cinequest information call (408) 995-5033. QUESTION: What is your role as an artist? ANSWER: To tell invisible stories. To put people like you and me into the American art landscape. To tell stories from the insider point of view. I’ve read enough books and seen enough films and seen the “lack of.” I go “wait a minute, they need another point of view.” We’re not the only ones who can tell our stories, but there’s a different flavor when we tell it. Why did you wait until 40 to pursue an art career? I was a nice chinese girl. I came from a working-class background, a peasant background, struggling immigrants who worked 17 hours a day. The concept of leisure, education, self was real foreign. Another reason was it took me that long to build up my stories and to know that I wanted to say something. I was in my late 30s and said, “If I want to do it, this is it.” Making the decision to become a fine artist is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life. It’s opened up worlds to me. As a kid, were your parents supportive of your artistic endeavors? Not at all. the talent was in the family. My parents wanted us to be doctors, lawyers, dentists; bring in an income, buy apartment buildings, reflect on glory. In Chinese-American families, there’s no sense of self. The self is defined in relationship to family, community and maybe to the nation. For those of us who were culturally marching toward artistic expression, it was, “Why are you doing that? There’s no money!” Why did you choose rice sacks as your medium? When my father was shot [for allegedly embezzling money from a Chinese lottery to feed his family], we didn’t have any rice3 to eat. Relatives brought us sacks of rice. We survived because of these rice sacks. When we finished a 25-pound sack of rice, I wouldn’t use it to wash dishes, wash the car, make a shirt, throw it away, I just put it into this little sewing sack. I love the extraordinary circumstances of ordinary people and love everyday materials that aren’t revered. Then I change the meaning of these materials when I embellish and layer my narratives on them. Basically, I’m a storyteller, but instead of writing words, my priority is to be visual. There are things I want to say that words could never do for me. What do you want people to get out of the exhibit? I want them to understand a historical time in America, that is an American story with a Chinese-American subset, that for the Chinese-Americans was a time of shame, secrets and lies. Now by talking about it in a contemporary time, and owning up to our history, we can heal. TODD INOUE tinoue@sjmercury.com |
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