Jenna Lee is a First Nations Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australia (Irish and Scottish) ancestry, intertwining cultural knowledge from her multi-faceted identity to rewrite the stories that are largely misrepresented by colonialism.

Tony Tran creates altar-like sculptures, reimagining iconography through his experiences of living in the diaspora. From floral, geometrical figures, Tony fuses distinct symbolisms taken from Asian and European influences in an attempt to understand and embrace his asian identity in a westernised landscape. These ornate faux-porcelain objects, created from plant-based resin, blend digital and traditional modes of sculpture making to reconstruct cultural imagery, producing a new cultural aesthetic from the third space. The ever-shifting process of creating these works fragment chimeras of faceless angels and humanoid deities that reimagine the idea of iconography in the third space.

Reminiscing on time spent during festive periods at her grandparent’s home in Southeast Asia and in Australia, Maria Thaddea reimagines Chinese knots through a diasporic lens. Traditionally used as good-luck charms to ward off evil and in decorating homes during festivities, this series subverts the symbolism of classic charms. From charms that attract wealth, harmonise and balance energies, shield from negative energies and to charms that wish for the perfect peachy beach bum, represent duality in identities, and protect from insects. This is an ode to these memories; the mosquito coils, ancestral altars, longevity bowls, and fruits in styrofoam nets.