Center for Design and Material Culture

THE LINE ALONG THE KNOT

Foreground is an interconnected mesh of thin, wire like strands creating a grid shape. A bead is tied into the grid in the upper right corner. In the background is a shadow of a hand, reaching for the bead.

THE LINE ALONG THE KNOT
Veronica Y Pham | MFA Thesis Exhibition

THE LINE ALONG THE KNOT focuses on traditional craft processes including, Vietnamese papermaking, Chinese knotting, and netting that reexamines a personal connection to these techniques while asking significant broader questions around migration, cyclical histories, and multi-cultural identity. The exhibition is constructed using a single material–paper mulberry, a plant that has survived centuries of migration from East and Southeast Asia to areas in North America. Pham constructs large scale nets from paper mulberry in a maze-like form as a metaphor to prompt viewers to ask questions about the complexities around identity and migration. The installation of this body of work will also be a site host to invite Pham’s mother, Julie Yang Kwok, to interpret the installation site through music where she will play the guzheng (Chinese traditional zither) and explore the connections of personal heritage and voyage.

This exhibition was on view in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery from March 21 – April 12, 2024.

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photograph of a woman seated at a guzheng in the center of an art gallery surrounded by netting with people around her listening to her play
Julie Yang Kwok performing on the guzheng (Chinese traditional zither) during the opening reception of “THE LINE ALONG THE KNOT.”

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In the exhibition, THE LINE ALONG THE KNOT, Veronica Pham invited her mother, Julie Yang Kwok, to interpret the installation site through music where she played the guzheng (Chinese traditional zither). Through her performances, Yang explored the connections of personal heritage and voyage and played improvisational guzheng while interpreting the knots within the exhibition space.