'Home Is Where Your Heart Is' uses pictures from Hong Kong and Sydney to explores my sense of belonging in the place I grew up in.

Exegesis:

In ‘Home Is Where Your Heart Is’, I combine still images with videography and animation to immerse viewers into a vivid retelling of my turbulent journey with cultural belonging.

Being raised in an English speaking environment within the Cantonese speaking landscape of Hong Kong has always hindered my connection to the city. The realisation that cultural connection is built from more than one’s linguistic capacity was a turning point in how I viewed myself, and is a concept I wanted to visualise.

Using locations in Sydney to symbolise cultural connection was my vision. The first two pictures of my mother were taken near a Chatswood Asian market. Using an area filled with non-English signs gave it the illusion of looking as if she were in Hong Kong, emphasising her ability to assimilate into our culture. Contrastingly, I placed myself against the red Chinatown gate. Chinatown, established from Sydney’s history of anti-immigration policies, is the pinnacle of displacement. Paired with vibrant and distinct colourgrading, Chinatown represents my disorientation even in a Western recreation of my culture. Finally, I represent my belonging in Sydney using Prince Alfred Park. The natural environment contradicts the previous urban settings. I incorporated my own experimental style into the video using a mask and blending mode to represent me going to a place of comfort at the foot of a tree. This doubling of myself is reflected at the end of the photo essay, where I look into the mirror, coming to terms with my cultural belonging, creating a cyclical narrative. Cyclicality is emphasised as I revisit distinct editing styles of overlays and animations and the beginning and the end, and by using the same guzheng soundtrack at two distinct moments in the story, where I feel displaced, then eventually belong. This creates a conclusiveness of my internal qualms.

Making the photo essay dynamic was a challenge. To overcome this, I sought inspiration and tried to emulate @ohnohanajo on Instagram, who turns pictures from her life into cinematic thinkpieces with the strategic overlaying of images, flashing pictures, intentional pacing and vivid sound, creating a multi-layered experience. Another challenge was sourcing pictures of Hong Kong despite being in Sydney. For this, I took stills out of archival videos that I shot in August. Some looked dubious in quality, which was solved using colour grading.

Inspired by Wong Kar Wai, I wanted to use green and red to symbolise my internal flux in belonging. Red, the colour of Hong Kong’s flag, symbolises connection to the place. Green, its complementary colour - which is the colour of my outfit in the first part of the photo essay - therefore symbolises displacement. Yet, when green and red are combined through colourgrading, the pictures start to look like stills from Wong Kar Wai’s films, who has become the face of Hong Kong through his filmography. The colours imitate the storyline: that even with displacement and distance from my culture, I can still find a way to belong.