Maria VanDyken Li
Cantonese for Midwestern Wives
Interdisciplinary Arts & Media
Multimedia sculpture – plywood, computer and monitor, wire, LED rope, arcade buttons
Pictured: Jeremy Li and Maria VanDyken Li
Pictured: Jeremy Li and Maria VanDyken Li
Digital Illustration – ongoing collection
Project Statement
Cantonese for Midwestern Wives is an illustrated dialogue between myself and my husband which tells the story of the joys, humor, and challenges of combining our two lives into one. The ongoing dialogue offers a contemporary representation of companionship and, in our particular case, an intercultural marriage. Me from the Midwest, and my husband, Jeremy, from Hong Kong. Through everyday observation and language translation, we reflect on our shared life and the nuances of our family's simultaneous regional and global identity.
To tell our story, I have adopted a classroom aesthetic in the light-handedness of my illustrations as well as the installation itself. Two special study desks stand a few paces from one another connected by a mess of bundled wire—a sculptural representation of the bond between Jeremy and me. Viewers can read the story by sitting at a desk outfitted with a screen and two buttons labeled yours 你 and mine 我. A push of a button triggers the corresponding stack of digital flashcards to shuffle at random and a new moving image to play. Each animation is captioned with a phrase in Cantonese and English, the languages of our families. I have left our dialogue segmented so the viewer can study our story the same way we live it—without linearity, in looped playback, and with some repeats. Like a stack of flashcards, we keep coming back to again and again, learning each time we shuffle the deck.
This collection of drawings is ongoing—from the small moments at home, to the pandemic, to the simultaneous political movements in the U.S and Hong Kong.
Artist Biography
Maria VanDyken Li is a Midwestern artist working in illustration, digital media, and critical making. Influenced by playful cinematic storytelling, Maria observes and reflects on the complexities of her life’s smallest moments, and how she finds beauty and meaning in the day-to-day.