WONG
BJ
PHOTOGRAPHY

The Journey of Lifetime: Wong’s Immigration Story
‘The Journey of Lifetime: Wong’s Immigration Story’ is a photographic project on my family.
In Chinese Modern history, we have a few well-known migration waves to places such as Northeast, Xikou, Tea-horse ancient road, Nanyang and San Francisco. My great-grandfather, Ong Kok Thin, followed the Nanyang migration wave to Malaya after the mid 20th century. Recollections from my childhood memories and looking through family portraits and photo albums had reminded me of the existence of my great-grandfather. By looking at the blessed quotes on the wall, I comprehend my family’s vision. It motivates me to embark on a journey to trace my family history. I went through a few processes including coloring my great-grandfather’s black and white picture, applying the technique of reconstruction of objects and scenes, taking photos for every family member and comparing the old and new photos. These processes provide me the material I need to recreate the years of journeys that my forefather came through to enhance the concept of self-identity. From that, I am able to connect the dots using family identity, history and memories and use it to rethink the relationship of photography, space and memories.
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