SCULPTURE

BARBARA KANG

DEVIN WILSON

NINA MILLER

SOFIJA CHRONEOS

ANGIE
WIJAYA

angietw.com
Thesis Project


As a “third culture kid,” home has always played an indeterminate aspect of my identity. But only recently have I put into question how my parents, who are Chinese Indonesians, might question and feel the same way. In my thesis project, I want to focus on the sense of belonging and identity in the context of home explored through the lens of language and names.

My work explores the estranged idea of home combined with the idea of belonging, especially how it relates to those whose perception of home has been affected by others unwilling to accept new cultures and populations. By exploring a more specific case, I want to investigate how memory and acceptance relates to my parent’s identity as Chinese Indonesians. Ethnically Chinese in Indonesians have always had a complicated history in terms of their identity and sense of belonging in Indonesia, as they have even had regulations and laws passed in order to limit and control the amount of Chinese culture that is able to be displayed in public or even to change their names. This body of work presents how identity is intertwined with the small traces and artifacts (tangible and intangible) of their ancestry and identity they still have. Through this thesis project I want to investigate how language, names, and history have been kept in the memory of Chinese Indonesians and especially in the reclaiming of the Chinese Indonesian identity.