Family Association Updates

Since April 1, I have been working with software developer and sound artist Halsey Burgund (and also his developer for the iOS app) to start on-site testing for the app. It’s so exciting to finally see how the original concepts are coming together, and I’m learning so much working with Halsey and his team …

Today’s New York Times featured a story about family associations in Manhattan’s Chinatown. On one hand, the associations’ membership as well as the physical buildings that the associations call home are both rapidly aging …

I’m working on the ending movement this week, revisiting the recordings where I asked the interviewees to reflect on future generations of Chinese-Americans. In this section, all five instruments will finally come together and play in unison rhythm with the recorded speech…

This is an excerpt from a working draft of Family Association. In this work, the listener is invited to explore Manhattan's Chinatown and visit the sites of five different family associations in the neighborhood. Depending on their proximity to these locations…

I just wrapped up about two weeks of processing the oral history recordings, and this week I’m finally starting to figure out how the music will work. In particular, I want to investigate how the combination of music and speech can not only heighten and deepen our experience of the words…

The space between music and speech has been a common theme throughout my recent work. In the past, I listened to the recorded speech and transcribed the melodies on my own, where the unique way that I hear a certain turn of phrase translates into how I hear that speech as a musical melody…

Family Association began as a project with The Performance Project at University Settlement, where I currently serve as an Artist-In-Residence for the 2021-22 season. In addition, I’m very excited for the project to be co-presented by Music At The Anthology as part of the 2021-22 MATA Presents season…

We are just under two weeks away from Lunar New Year. This year, I am grateful for the technology that has enabled me to interview people across the globe and for their generosity in sharing their memories with me…

When I launched the project, I tried reaching out to all of the family associations in Chinatown that are organized by family name. I sent physical letters out to the associations and heard back from two individuals…

In June 2021, as part of my artist residency at University Settlement’s Performance Project, I had the unique opportunity to lead workshops on collecting oral history…

The concept for Family Association has its start as a grant proposal submitted to the Alarm Will Sound Matt Marks Impact Fund. In early 2020, the Museum of Chinese in America’s archives…

This blog post is the start of my efforts to write about the creative process of Family Association. The work began life as a grant proposal submitted at the end of 2020…