A Thousand Mountains and Ten Thousand Waters. Performance, 2022. Espacio C, Chichicastenango, Guatemala, 2022.
There is a literary figure in Mandarin which represents a long and epic journey: A Thousand Mountains and Ten Thousand Waters. My maternal grandparents named their first born and second child after this figure in honor of the long journeys they embarked as a family looking for better futures. My uncle who lives in Taipei, Taiwan is called 千山 (A Thousand Mountains), and my aunt was named 萬水 (Ten Thousand Waters). My mother’s family migrated for many years and finally arrived at Taiwan during the 40s fleeing from the Civil War in China.
This performance consists of drawing one thousand mountains and ten thousand strokes of water to make a tribute with my action to the voyages we have made as family, looking for better conditions for our new generations, acting on our desire of generating a safe place to live and grow. Through these migrations our identity has been transformed, we have learned to collaborate and we have developed new ways of belonging.
