Everything We Lost (And Everything We Found)

16” x 20”

Pencil crayon on paper

2022

I asked my father and younger brother to participate in this work. Without knowing what it means, my brother and father rewrote by hand, a letter to my grandfather, written by my great-grandfather. My brother, without knowing Chinese, rewrote the letter in Chinese (left) as my father, without knowing English, rewrote the letter's translation to English (right). This letter was sent to my grandfather after he left his family behind in China to avoid enlistment.  Dated January 1965, my great-grandfather tells my grandfather to fulfill his role in the family and to not worry about him anymore. Together, the two letters form a conversation, bridging a gap across generations of fathers and sons, languages, a culture of assimilation, and people they have never got to know.