in-between
a story of home, belonging, and the Asian Diaspora
in-between explores the immigrant experience through the lens of the Asian diaspora. Drawing on personal narratives, macroeconomic data, and interactive technologies, the exhibition navigates the tensions between displacement and belonging, memory and movement, personal identity and geopolitical history.
Blending data visualization, physical installation, and generative storytelling, in-between creates an immersive space for audiences to reflect on how place, ancestry, and identity are continually reshaped.
motivation
I was born in the Philippines, and grew up in China, Japan, and the United States. I have always struggled with defining home and a place of belonging for myself.
With this show, I ask: In an age defined by global movement and digital interconnectivity, when we can grow up thousands of miles from our ancestral homes, how do we define “home”, and our places of belonging?
I started conceptualizing this show last January, at the same time that I started seeing endless reports of mass deportations. They filled me with helplessness and rage, a constant reminder that even after decades of living in this country, to be an immigrant is to be in a fragile position.
To me, the immigrant experience is a series of uprooting and re-rooting, which is why I chose to represent each year that I’ve lived in a country as tree rings, and silkscreen them with watercolor on the most delicate, fragile washi paper I could find.
The following are the three sections of the show.
“deportation” (2025)
In March 2025, the U.S. deported 238 Venezuelans—most with no criminal charges or records—to an El Salvadorian prison without due process. Soon after, the U.S. State Department revoked thousands of international student visas. These reports come at a time of heightened nationalistic and anti-immigration sentiments around the world.
In this piece, a machine drips water onto delicate washi paper, each printed with my immigration history. Using Google Trends, the cadence of water drips mirror search volume for the word “deportation” from 2016 to 2025 worldwide. Over time, the delicate paper blurs and wears away with the persistent water drops.
home:1–8 (2025)
In search of my own definition of home, I interviewed seven others with similar backgrounds to me: Asian diaspora who grew up in a Western country and chose to move to Japan in their adulthood.
Their journeys are visualized as tree rings, each ring representing a year they have lived in a country. Each international move is captured as wind, a visual metaphor for seeds drifting and re-rooting elsewhere. Their journeys are contextualized by a timeline of the annual GDP (gross domestic product) per capita of the country they were living in at the time—reminder of the macroeconomic factors often at play in each move. The visualizations are paired with an excerpt from their interviews, as well as a photo that reminds them of home.
S, 35
I created this show because I was searching for my own definition of home. I have arrived at the finish line, and I still don’t have one. But my husband once promised me that he’d bring home to us wherever we go. For now, that is more than enough.
K, 35
It’s changing every time, that definition of what home is. Right now for me home is my apartment and my wife. Home is that routine of coming home to my wife, waking up next to her, our morning routine. Five, seven years ago it would be that but also our dog, our friends back in California. So it’s always changing according to what I’m around. But something that is consistent is always the people you care about. That’s what makes a place feel like home.
K & Q, 32
home for me is wherever we are currently. one thing that I think about a lot recently is this idea of wanting to settle down. moving to Japan has changed that a little bit. I don’t only want to have one place I can call home. home is where you build experiences, so that’s why I think home is often where you have lived. but sometimes if you don’t feel like you had any notable experiences there I don’t think you would call that home. living together, going through what you go through when moving to a new country, settling down here from scratch and everything that comes with that, is what makes Tokyo feel like home.
R, 29
home is a place that inspires thoughts and fosters challenge, but it also is a place where I can actually sleep, I can actually relax.
M (31)
quite honestly, I’m still working on what home really is.
there is one place that I always came back to throughout my life, which is my grandparents’ house in Tokyo. it’s the first house I lived in, it was the one constant domicile that I saw my whole family growing up in. The address never changed, it’s still the only phone number I can recall by heart. But the house doesn’t exist anymore, they tore the house down when my grandma passed away when I was 20. now, the memory of this house is home to me.
but I also recently went to Europe, and it reminded me of the quality of living in Spain. it made me realize that there are more important things than just heads down hustle. it made me really reflect on my current life in Tokyo, what am I working hard for? why is it that, even though Tokyo used to be my forever home, where my grandmother was, how come the Tokyo I live in now doesn’t feel like that?
home:collective (2025)
Visitors are invited to enter the years and countries they’ve lived in, and to share what “home” means to them. In return, the system creates a visualization of their journeys, and connects them with another visitor whose idea of home is similar to theirs—but whose background may be completely different.
Their answers are stored locally; nothing leaves the exhibition.
