Objects In-between: Designing a Visual language for Traversing Personal Identity, Migration and Intercultural Spaces

Abstract

My PhD research draws on the material culture around contemporary design and craft traditions to articulate identity from an intercultural context. These ideas are framed within the geographical loci of context to place, home and object as navigational entry points to investigate the complexities of identity from a personal perspective. My explorations reflect on my biographic journey, a time which encompasses the Vietnamese refugee crisis and the White Australian Policy during the 1970s. Central to the research is the notion of hybridity as a third cultural space informed by my personal narratives and identity as a migrant living in Sydney, Australia. I connect the research to broader theory of 'third space' identity. Third space is a post-colonial theory coined by the critical theorist Homi Bhabha. It is a term to describe the state and effect of hybridity in which the overlapping of two or more cultural spaces disrupt the identification of a person through political, social and cultural negotiations forming new positions. It is these in-between positions which have been contested and extensively written about by other diaspora scholars including; Ien Ang, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Nikos Papastergiadis. Their theories on hybridity are significant for the research by contextualising my own lived experience and negotiation of multiple cultures. In addition to this I also connect with object theory to argue how objects can shape and reflect identity. Framed by these theoretical contexts I explore concepts of movement, migration and identity from multiple cultural perspectives of Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese heritage. Through deconstructing these ideas, I define my sense of intercultural hybridity in order to extend common and relatable strategies for designing a visual language that articulates my third space identity. The practice-led research unfolds through a range of interdisciplinary investigations, design methodologies and traditional craft processes. Personal collections of objects are analysed through taxonomy as a way to synthesise interdisciplinary studio investigations, combining graphic animations with contemporary jewellery and object processes to develop a visual system that examines cross-cultural translations. These strategies produce innovative, new approaches to making contemporary craft and design. My final series of metal object-based works are tangible evocations of liminality as manifestations of my experience as a Southeast Asian-Australian woman and further represent a perspective of Australia's unique complex cultural realities. Show more