Two Wongs Making a White

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Research Background My research on 'Curating Inclusive Cities through Art' is transdisplinary, drawing from contemporary art and curatorial discourses, urban social theory, cultural theory, feminist theory and migrant social histories. The installation work project presented researched Chinese Australian social histories and considered the Homi Bhabba's ideas of the 'Third space' and how 'hybridity' of culture is imagined in the context of Australian Chinese social histories through contemporary art practices. Research Contribution My research asks the question: How can contemporary art practices express a personal history informed by a social and political framework of the 'Personal is Political'? The art work presented to address this issue was Two Wongs Making a White. The work plays on the well-known phrase by Australia's former Immigration Minister, Arthur Caldwell, who in 1947 famously said, "Two Wongs don't make a white". The phrase came to represent Australia's racism during the White Australia policy era, which officially ended in 1973. I chose to use this phrase to represent the relationship between two female 'Wongs', my absent grandmother and myself. The work shines a light on the impact of 'White Australia' when the migration of Chinese wives was often denied, resulting in families being separated. Stories of my Grandmother have often haunted me, leading to producing a work, which cares for her narrative and creates a place for her in our family through imagining the offering of a meal, a way of feeding my 'hungry ghost'. Research Significance The work was curated into the exhibition Waipo (Grandmothers) at the Chinese Museum, April-August, 2018, co-curated by Joyce Agee and Nicholas Chin. The exhibition is part of a new initiative the Multicultural Museums Victoria Network, where five cultural museums in Melbourne have curated exhibitions relating to the same theme.