My Mother’s Village (鹿湖坝)

My collaboration with Future Through Memory is a tribute to my ancestors, my family, and the Hakka community. For this tribute, I created a virtual landscape of my mother’s Hakka village of 鹿湖坝 (Lù hú bà) in Guangdong province, China. The village was produced with photogrammetry using archival photos of my last visit to the village in 2015 as part of my journey of learning more about my Hakka ancestry. In my mother’s village, you will explore locations with strong ties to my family history, visiting the family’s ancestral hall and the family tomb located on a hill overlooking the village. In the background, you will hear my mother speaking in Hakka reading from the Zapu 家譜 recounting her family history. I never imagine that six years later I will be visiting my mother’s village in the virtual space especially during a pandemic when travel is limited. I want to thank Lilian for giving me this opportunity to be united with my mother, her village, and the ancestors.

About the Creator

Joshua Lue Chee Kong

Joshua Lue Chee Kong (b. 1988) is an interdisciplinary artist, archivist and researcher from Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. His work focuses on Caribbean narratives around creolization and the way it has shaped the social fabric of the Caribbean region.

He studied at Savannah College of Art and Design where he received his BFA in graphic design and his MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies of Art, Media and Design from OCAD University.

Joshua has participated in artist residencies at Red Gate Gallery, Beijing in 2015 and at Vermont Studio Centre, Vermont in 2017. At Medulla Art Gallery, Trinidad, he has had two solo exhibitions titled Moulded Memories in 2014 and Paradise in 2016.

His work had been published in Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, ANNO book, See Me Here: A Survey of Contemporary Self-Portraits from the Caribbean, The Draconion Switch e-magazine and two of his photographic images appeared on the cover of the August 2012 TIME magazine.

www.joshualuecheekong.com

IG: Josh_Lu_Studio
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