We spoke to recent Artist in Residence Jacky Cheng about her creative practice and the inspirations behind Honour and Love featured in our current exhibition Vessel, Cloth and Cloak, showing at the Australian Tapestry Workshop until the end of July.

How did you get into making art?

From a young age, I looked forward to folding joss papers to prayers purposes at home or at the temple. That was my first experience in observing an intentional folding methodology. Then, as I was not allowed to pursue art as a career, I masked my intention with architectural studies. I’m glad I did because it provided an array of diverse skills (technical and conceptual) in my practice through highlighting nostalgia in the context of personal and cultural memory.

Who or what inspires you to create?

My paternal grandmother - a widowed woman, hard and determined with 9 children immigrated from China and lived in Malaysia her whole adult life not knowing how to speak the local language. She brought ‘China’ with her and was stuck in time with her practices. I learned to keep her stories and practices alive. What motivates me to create is evoked through embodied memory - an acknowledgement to my cultural existence; constantly in the in-between state; observation as a diaspora POC identity set within a colonial structure.

What does your practice involve – what techniques do you use in your work?

My primary medium is paper. I’ve given myself a lifetime task to get-to-know paper intimately as best as I can and at the same time push the medium to defy commonality into specialty. My techniques involve a plethora of ways of manipulating paper for the project’s intention.

What does a day in the studio look like?

I am creature of habits and rituals. My attendance and showing up to my practice is my number one practice. Then the rest will flow - from researching to making etc. Usually, I spend between 6 -8 hours in studio steadily unless there’s a deadline.

How does your work in this exhibition relate to your practice and where it is heading?

There was a point in 2020 when I was engulfed with sadness, horrible and unprepared news. The worst was when we were limited by our movement to attend to our loved ones. This entire scenario got me thinking about funeral preparation. Death was a pertinent conversation in my family as opposed to before because it was considered a taboo subject.

Suddenly there was a need to speed up my understanding and knowledge about funeral preparation particularly women’s clothing / women’s business. Paper clothing existed hundreds of years ago. Paper clothing effigy is used in the Taoist funeral ceremonial purposes. I made Honour and Love to prepare for my afterlife and an ode to my grandmother’s funeral preparation. I only became aware of the significance of her funeral wearable pieces during the height of the distressful global event.

Currently, I am exploring many facets of afterlife filial piety topic within the Taoist community.

What are your creative aspirations?

Story telling is the essence of meaning-making. Conversations surrounding cultural celebrations, taboos and protocols were pertinent to my childhood as ideals of benevolence and loyalty to reflect the core objectives of intergenerational relationships through acts of filial piety. Culture comes from place and the motivation is to keep sharing of these practices an awareness of cultural practices within our contemporary society.

‘Vessel, Cloth and Cloak’ is open to the public to view 1-5pm, Tuesday – Saturday until 29 July.

View the ‘Vessel, Cloth and Cloak’ exhibition page here.