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Abstract
The MFA research project Banana-kids: Chineseness in the contemporary Australian community comprises a body of studio work, largely ceramic, and an accompanying document. Its aim is to investigate the effect of Chineseness inscribed on those Chinese Australians born in Australia or arriving in infancy, in contemporary Australian society. The study commences with the experience of my Australian-born mother who dressed as an Australian, talked as an Australian and thought as an Australian, but nonetheless looked physically Chinese. She was assimilated into the Australian community; however, she was not allowed to return to Australia from Hong Kong at the end of World War II, despite holding an Australian birth certificate, since she had married in Hong Kong before the war and her passport had been burnt during the period of conflict. The studio component of the study is realized as a Chinese formal dinner setting which includes chopstick-holders reconfigured as Australian animals and
a Chinese labourer's carrying device, ‘Jook-sing’, as a flower vase. Narrative
and parody are engaged in the work as a means of reflecting on ‘Aussie culture’ through my eyes as a Chinese artist. The twelve chopstick-holders each manifest Chineseness as well as certain characteristics of Australian culture. The document applies the methodology of exegesis to record and elucidate the development of the research. It is expected that the installation of these studio outcomes will arouse in the viewer an awareness of the attitudes and responses that the Australian-born Chinese experience everyday. Moreover, it will provoke contemplative consideration among a Chinese-Australian audience.