Torn 

7th November 2019

Multimedia installation, photographs, toys, medals, certificates, crockery, clothes,  New Zealand native bird sounds, ocean sounds, Philippine Tinikling music, Philippine traffic sounds. 

1m x 1m flattened boxes​

Collected archival materials from 1999 - 2017 

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Migrant: 

Someone who goes in search of a better life, usually outside of their home country. Someone who cares about their family and their family’s future. Someone who risks everything on a dream. 

 

In 2019 there are an estimated 272 million people considered migrants in our world today and I am one of them.

 

Carried by the sound of two countries from one place to another, a push and pull effect is portrayed. What is gained versus what is left behind. Although the objects and images are personal to me, they act as a channel with your own life, experiences or memories. 

 

For the past two years of my degree I have been exploring my own identity and past. Aided by this hindsight, the push and pull effects of life as a migrant has been weighing on my mind. I am using my own family’s experience of moving from the Philippines to New Zealand to lead the viewer into realizing the balancing act that takes place when one is torn between two homes, two cultures and two sides of oneself.

 

Everyone has the right to seek a better life for themselves and their families, but that does not mean it is an easy decision or journey. Birthdays, friendships, milestones, achievements. Can we and should we compare this new life with the old friends left behind and now forgotten, the family reunions missed, or the cultural ties severed over time? 

 

As one ship docks, the other sails. 

As one migrant lives, they will always be torn.

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