- Title: Subtitle
- Longing for belonging
- Creators
- Mei Lam So
- Contributors
- Heather Parrish (Advisor)Anita Jung (Committee Member)Terry Conrad (Committee Member)Andrew Casto (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Fine Arts (MFA), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Art
- Date degree season
- Spring 2022
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.006395
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- vi, 32 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2022 Mei Lam So
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations (chiefly color)
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 31-32).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- My work explores the process of acculturation through socio-cultural and psychological adjustments of bicultural Asian immigrants. Framed within the context of cultural influence and familial relationships, I look at how immigrants change their behaviors, beliefs, and values towards themselves and others to analyze how identities are formed and negotiated; this negotiation of identities conflicts between accepting the new culture while upholding traditional values. The conflation of identities leads to confusion and a sense of disassociation where one feels like a stranger to themselves. Through paper, textile, and ceramics, I form spaces and narratives to share my experiences with the paradoxes of my shifting identities. To reconcile my own bicultural identity, I rely on nostalgia as a coping strategy and look back to past memories that have defined my present, memories that establish a connection between my identity with cultural objects and physical spaces. Longing for Belonging examines the development of my multifaceted bicultural identity from past to present, where familiar and mundane spaces of reimagined memories are accompanied by emotions of isolation, separation, and absentness. Through reconnecting with my past while simultaneously co-presenting a current view, viewers become initiated to a conversation on negotiating identities, memories past, nostalgic present, and what happens in-between.
- Academic Unit
- School of Art, Art History, and Design
- Record Identifier
- 9984271353502771
Thesis
Longing for belonging
University of Iowa
Master of Fine Arts (MFA), University of Iowa
Spring 2022
DOI: 10.17077/etd.006395
Abstract
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