Thirty spokes support the hub of the wheel; because of the space within the hub, the cart is able to move. Vessels may be made of clay, it is the space inside that makes them useful. Build a room with door and windows; it is the space through the door and windows which is useful.
Lao Tze - Korean poet cited by Heeyeon Chang

Do you often incorporate family stories in your work?

Most of my pieces include autobiographical work, and members of my family and my relationship with them. Examining the relationship with my family is a deeper and more intense experience than only examining myself. The male members in my family are rather distant from me so it is a struggle or challenge to have a relationship with them. Hopefully, through my work I will be able to reclaim my family story that has not been told.

How did the idea for your installation for Finding Family Stories begin?

This is an autobiographical piece. I chose to incorporate my father, childhood memories, and an intermixing of eastern and western philosophies as part of my experience growing up in a 1.5 generation Korean American family. There is a story to every object in the piece. Stories dealing with the male immigrant disenchantment, referring to my father when he first immigrated and didn't find success, to images on the rice paper illustrating various functions of ink brush calligraphy that serves metaphorically to the family. I went back to my house and started asking my father questions and found out that when they first immigrated they were going to open an ink brush calligraphy painting business. The business didn't go well and he left it to my mother to take care of it. It was important for me to put that history in the piece as a parallel to my personal relationship with him. I also included a quote by Lao Tze describing the space between doors and windows as being the most useful of those structures mirroring each other on the walls: "Thirty spokes support the hub of the wheel; because of the space within the hub, the cart is able to move. Vessels may be made of clay; it is the space inside that makes them useful. Build a room with door and windows; it is the space through the door and windows which is useful."

In the video there are two narratives describing the reclusive nature of my father after immigrating from Korea. The first illustrates his abandonment of the ink brush business while the second follows his gradual abandonment of his children. The audio is from one of my father's teachers. He used to record his teachers and go into his room which he actually built for himself behind the garage to study. In a sense, my piece is a re-creation of his study room the difference being that I've incorporated myself in the study. My father kept to himself most of the time. This piece is the building of my own fantasy. In one of the pictures I pose as a male calligraphy artist, lining myself up with different famous calligraphy artists. I put myself in a position where my father would notice me in a respectful light and pay attention to me.

By incorporating your family stories in your art you bring something private to the public. What do you hope to achieve by doing so?

I've chosen to create work on a very personal level, but end up complicating my work in order to confuse and perhaps alienate the public. It is difficult facing my family when their personal stories are brought out from the private to the public. This piece is an investigation of my family history. I hope it results in a greater understanding of the first generation immigrant family while it enables me to add to the multiplicity of that experience.

Heeyeon Chang is a graduate of UC Irvine. She was born in South Korea and immigrated to the United States in 1976. She is a 1.5 generation Korean American and frequently approaches ideas and concerns dealing with the Korean American immigrant family. Chang works through multi-narrative installations where video, text, photography, and sound interplay.