joannachiayulin@gmail.com
CV / ABOUT
NEWS
2024/2025
Acrylic medium, inkjet print pigment and stainless steel.
Arrangememnts according to the site, 4 sets of works, 13 pieces.
155 x 123 cm, 155 x 99 cm, 155 x 123 cm & 155 x 197 cm.
(Sub-titles from Left to Right)
- After Mormor’s passing, Yizhu, Taiwan, February and June 2024
155 x 123 cm - Window side, Yizhu and Lier, February and August 2024
155 x 99 cm - Mirrors and loved ones, Yizhu, Chiayi and Taichung, February and June 2024
155 x 123 cm - Our clusters, Yizhu, Chiayi, Taichung and Lier, February, June and August 2024
155 x 197 cm
Documentation by Istvan Virag/ Kunstdok
Family Album is part of my long-term project As the Crow Flies, an interdisciplinary exploration of memory and shifting identities between places. The title, taken from the phrase "as the crow flies" (referring to the most direct path), reflects the emotional and temporal distances that influence the notion of home.
In this particular piece, I look into generational trauma, evolving identities, and the roles women play within family structures, focusing on four women in my family: my maternal grandmother, my paternal grandmother, my mother, and myself. It speaks of inherited narratives, personal choices, and the silent weight of unspoken expectations.
I photographed their dressing tables, the most intimate spaces in their lives. For my part, I photographed my working desk, where I, too, spend much of my time. These photographs were taken during two visits back to Taiwan in the same year, a year marked by sickness, death, and many changes. Though from different locations, the images capture semi-parallel moments, adding another dimension of time.
The images are then transformed into large-scale soft sculptures through a technique I developed. Much like memories, the work transforms between materials, rewritten each time. Mounted with industrial curtain parts, the installation contrasts the vulnerability of personal memory with the external forces that carry it.
By deconstructing and reassembling these private spaces, Family Album explores how personal histories can be preserved, altered, or resisted. Between past and present, reflecting on the inherited roles women play within Asian culture, where between self-sacrifice and autonomy, cycles of love, care, and expectation continually recur. The work shows the conflicts between independence, duty, and the freedom to choose, and what it means to confront, carry, or redefine one’s place within a family.
In this particular piece, I look into generational trauma, evolving identities, and the roles women play within family structures, focusing on four women in my family: my maternal grandmother, my paternal grandmother, my mother, and myself. It speaks of inherited narratives, personal choices, and the silent weight of unspoken expectations.
I photographed their dressing tables, the most intimate spaces in their lives. For my part, I photographed my working desk, where I, too, spend much of my time. These photographs were taken during two visits back to Taiwan in the same year, a year marked by sickness, death, and many changes. Though from different locations, the images capture semi-parallel moments, adding another dimension of time.
The images are then transformed into large-scale soft sculptures through a technique I developed. Much like memories, the work transforms between materials, rewritten each time. Mounted with industrial curtain parts, the installation contrasts the vulnerability of personal memory with the external forces that carry it.
By deconstructing and reassembling these private spaces, Family Album explores how personal histories can be preserved, altered, or resisted. Between past and present, reflecting on the inherited roles women play within Asian culture, where between self-sacrifice and autonomy, cycles of love, care, and expectation continually recur. The work shows the conflicts between independence, duty, and the freedom to choose, and what it means to confront, carry, or redefine one’s place within a family.