February20, 2015
“Self-preservation” opens at the Lewis Center for the Arts
Installationby senior Wendy Liexamines how memories are
created, erased, manipulated, and forgotten
Caption: Redacted pages from one of the artist’s personal diaries which are among the archival materials that form the basis for her exhibition.
Credit: Photo by Wendy Li
What: “Self-preservation,”an installation examining how memories are created, erased, manipulated and forgotten
Who: Created by senior in the Lewis Center’s Program in Visual Arts Wendy Li
When:March 2-6; opening reception March5 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.; installationopen Monday-Friday, 12:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Where: Room 301 at 185 Nassau St.
Free and open to the public
(Princeton, NJ) The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University will present “Self-preservation,”an installation by senior Wendy Li examining how memories are created, erased, manipulated and forgotten. Installed in the format of a museum exhibition, the work and objects document the artist’s process of remembering and of constructing history and identity from images and documents. The work will be on viewMarch 2 through 6from 12:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Room 301 at 185 Nassau Street. A reception will be held on March 5 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.
Li, from Philadelphia,is a major in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a focuson international development and how economic development affects women’s experiences. She is alsoearning certificates in French and in visual arts at the Lewis Center. Her senior thesis project in her majorrelates in some ways to her artistic work.
“This is an exhibition about exhibiting,” explains Li.She draws upon an archive of family photographs and written accounts, which span from 1930 to the present. Her family immigrated to Canada from China in the 1980s and then moved to the U.S. These archival materials document political and social revolutions, immigration, technological change, life and death as experienced by Li and her family. “Just as much as we document our lives to remember, to celebrate, and to share,” she notes, “the archives I explore are also shaped by pride, fear, shame, and vulnerability. Yet what we see is also dictated by underlying political forces, such as revolutions, reforms, and migration. I question not only what is shown, but what is absent, how memories are created, erased, manipulated, and forgotten by ourselves and by the outside world.”
Among the materials Li has assembled that demonstrate the process of constructing memory and history are the events and people that her family chose to photograph over the years and to collect in albums. Her own personal diaries, kept from the age of 12, also represent how an individual documents his or herown personal history. The exhibition will be installed much like a historical museum, further demonstrating the conscious choices made about representing a curated history.
Li’s ideas behind this project extend to thinking about the body as an archive. An individual’s geneticsand aging also document an individual’s life.
While not tied directly to her exhibition, Li’s senior thesis for her Woodrow Wilson School concentration also explores changing cultural attitudes. Her research examines how increasing participation of rural women in the workforce in China changes conceptions of female economic empowerment in those regions.
To learn more about other upcoming exhibitions, the Program in Visual Arts, and the over 100 other eventspresented each year at the Lewis Center visit arts.princeton.edu.
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