“Transparency is one of the most compelling characteristics of glass—a property that requires a subatomic perspective to fully understand. In response to the common evocation of “invisibility” to describe Asian-American identity, this work re-images ancient Chinese cash coins in transparency to suggest a more complex perspective on the silence and invisibility associated with or more typically and problematically assigned to Asian Americans.
Traditional Chinese coins typically have four words that indicate the value, size, or region of a coin—effectively locating the coin. The words that grace this coin speak to the value and complexity of being Invisible-American. Contemporary seal script characters approximately translate to “life, death, sound, and silence” in two homophonic pairings in Mandarin. As the work rotates, its presence periodically disappears from view as it transits on edge.”
