writing

2020-2023 – ‘you were come to me from the sky over the sea‘ – co-creator, development, poetry

‘ywctm’ explores themes of inter-generational trauma, memory, migration and exile through the lens of one family lineage and one place, Taiwan.
In 2020 Wu Shan Shan and Jasmine Wu Hanley (mother-daughter) began working on a project about Jasmine’s grandmother, Ma Lan, and collaborated with artist Ting Chaong-Wen to further the vision. With the help of Ting, we went to Pingtung County and found a WWII/Japanese-era bomb shelter near the military village where my grandmother first lived upon escaping (?) from Beijing. The bomb shelter was at once war-like and egg-like, and enchanted all three of us.
In May 2021, the team returned to Jiadong to create a film inspired by the bomb shelter and Jasmine’s writings in response to it. The basis of the ‘ywctm’ film is not strictly autobiographical but weaves through poetic impressions of past and present: from the starting point of Ma Lan, then moving forward two generations; from the military village, to the bomb shelter, to the sea.
In June 2021, ‘ywctm’ began its collaboration with Jorge Bachmann, who sound designed the project. In May 2022 and 2023, we continued the project with a longer film and a live audience bus tour as a part of an art festival.

2021 – The Jennie Show, TaiwanPlus – co-creator

The Jennie Show is the first original animation on the TaiwanPlus platform, inspired by the trials and tribulations of ABTs, or foreign-grown Taiwanese, as they return to their mysterious, familiar, and sometimes bewildering homeland.

Poems:

Personal essays:

On moving, heat, and heartbreak – electric blue compilation
On my first Vipassana, trauma, and being boundless – there is a crack in everything
On living in Melbourne and connecting to the moon – a year in review
On home and identity – homething
On depression and coming out of darkness – error on green

~ photo credit: The Stars by Vija Celmins and Eliot Weinberger ~