Weng Io Wong

16/12/2020-06/02/2021
Post-Ox Warehouse Experimental Site, Macao, China

Curator: Ann Hoi
Translator: Marco Iu
Photo ⓒ Ieong Man Pan
Installation view of For People Who Work in Casinos, Their Families Will Be Not Happy and Me, My Father, Mother and Sister, in solo exhibition All the Memories will be Good in the End, Post-Ox Warehouse Experimental Site, Macao, China, 2020

Through revisiting my childhood, the exhibition “All the Memories will be Good in the End” recounts the influence growing up in Macau has on me, also attempting to chronicle the living condition and status of the Macau people. 

Mama
2020
Printing on flannelette
120 x 200 cm
My parents both worked in the casinos, and, as I recall, they often communicated in a set of peculiar jargons—specific terms they used in their workplace—which informed the basis of my nascent understanding of language. 

For People Who Work in Casinos, Their Families Will Be Not Happy
2020
wool carpet
300 x 175 cm
The tapestry works included in the exhibition, borrowed their compositions from my family album, in which I converted the palettes of the photographs into the color scheme of the carpets found in various Macau’s casinos. Dave Schwartz, Director of the Center in Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, once theorizes that “casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble.”

Me, My Father, Mother and Sister
2020
wool carpet
300 x 175 cm
The carpet, which is employed multifunctionally as decoration, psychological application, and so forth, constructed a particular psychedelic pattern and form—a form that at the same time, conjures up in me an image of current Macau: enveloped by a deceptive, gimcrack exterior, come across vague but at times vibrant, spectacular but often neglected…

Me #1
2020
Synthetic fiber carpet
18.8 x 14.4 cm ea
The “shearing” process in carpet manufacturing trims the excessive yarn into an even length, and thus renders the carpet’s surface smooth. The word “shear” holds another layer of definition in the Cambridge Dictionary: “to cut the hair on a person’s head close to the skin, especially without care”. The former definition reminds one of the rapid social development that happened right after the gaming liberalization in Macau, which drastically narrowed down the local job market in favor of the gaming industry. By 2020, employees in the gaming industry significantly outnumber those who work in the other industries, taking up 20.8% of the total workforce in Macau—which consists of 85,800 people. How does this impact the younger generation? Another definition of “shear” also forces me to reconsider the drawbacks of typical Chinese parenting, as the act of “cutting someone’s hair without care” doubles down as a metaphor that points to how such mode of education only instills obedience in children, instead of nurturing their individuality…

Me #2
2020
Synthetic fiber carpet
44 x 31 cm ea

Hope
2020
Wool carpet
180 x 105 cm

To a certain extent, “shear” resembles my experience growing up, and somehow still haunts me to date… One of my high school teachers once told us in that class that “people who work in casinos won’t have a happy family.” I still remember how this statement troubled me. I told my mum about this when I got home and she dismissed the teacher’s words. As I got older, I began to think about this more often… Going through pictures of my past, I noticed how the most minuscule details of a certain event can impact the fundament of a person. Moreover, I reconsider my memories and their malleability under various circumstances—how I view these palimpsests of memories in different ways during different moments of my life. After looking at a dozen photos from my childhood, I am attached to how subtly these experiences affect my selfhood (although I don’t recall any of these childhood memories most of the time). These interferences are like the complex, kaleidoscopic pattern of casino carpet—vague but vibrant. At the same time, I also meditate on how working in casino influences my parents, and how they impact me elusively throughout my childhood and adulthood. 

By employing old photographs taken by my family members in my works, it feels as if I am collaborating with their younger selves. This kind of creative process acts as the way I—an adult—reestablish my connection with my family: through their perspectives, I am able to sympathize with them and understand their experience and plight as parents. Unlike my previous creative process, this time I am utilizing my practice to reconcile with myself. Owing to this undertaking, I am at last unfazed with the kind of entrenched prejudice and discrimination against the gaming industry, and at the same time, it empowered me to confront my personal trauma and fear. Leafing through my family album and looking back at my early photographs, I realize that my childhood has always been happy, or perhaps, I am willing to looking at it in this way.

Wong Weng Io

More info: https://allmemories.carrd.co