Offering: Cindy Huang
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Offering reflects Cindy Huang’s research into the Tauiwi Chinese New Zealand community in Te Matau-a-Māui, both past and present, with a focus on the region's market gardens, gardeners, and grocers. Due to a notable absence of recorded accounts in local and national museums and repositories, she has primarily relied on oral histories from within the community to piece together a picture of their lives, contributions, and labours. Her installation explores the ephemeral nature of this knowledge, highlighting both presence and absence.
The installation features handcrafted incense made from sandalwood blended with dried fruit powder, along with bronze casts of citrus peels and apple cores that serve as incense holders. All of these elements are produced from fruit sourced from Onekawa Fruit Shop, a local Chinese New Zealand family business. They are carefully arranged, evoking the forms associated with ancestral shrines—a reflection of the traditional Chinese custom of filial piety, which encompasses acts of remembrance and respect for both the living and the deceased. Typically accompanied with offerings of fresh fruit, the ritual of burning incense creates a sanctified and cleansed space that bridges the past with the present, allowing one to connect with their ancestors and memories.
While the artist doesn’t consider her work as a shrine in itself, she nevertheless sees it both as an act of tribute and a tableau vivant, a living still life, gesturing towards some specific accounts of hardship and stories which remain guarded within communities. Huang considers Offering as an elegy to those who are remembered, alongside those who have been forgotten over time.
Cindy Huang (born in Rotorua in 1997) currently lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. In 2023-24 she was based in Heretaunga Hastings. She holds a Master of Heritage Conservation in Museums and Cultural Heritage (2022), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) (2019), from the University of Auckland. Her work has been exhibited across Aotearoa in recent years, with recent solo and collaborative projects presented at Sumer, Te Atamira, Satellites, Chez Derriere, Studio One Toi Tū, and Meanwhile.
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