Unseamed is an experimental video work in which I put on and free myself from a cheongsam, a dress emblematic of a national Chinese femininity.

The cheongsam is not simply a garment. 

It carries the weight of an imposed identity, one that conflates a diasporic person’s origin with a nationalism they may no longer recognise as their own.  The work depicts the tension between a contemporary political reality and an assigned cultural identity, and the quiet, necessary act of distancing oneself from it while building a life elsewhere.

Shot in collaboration with Gadigal-based filmmaker and artist Liam Black, whose own experience of stretched belonging and anti-imperial sentiment resonates with the work’s concerns. Through a film language drawn from psychological thriller, drama, horror and slow cinema, he brings the psychological dimension of the performance into full relief.

In its installation form for HOME GROWN (Art Space on the Concourse, 2025) the video is presented alongside the physical artifacts of the performance, a chair, a cheongsam, and a pair of red high-heeled shoes, grounding the work in a tangible, corporeal reality.