Han Qin, 2022
Site-Specific Video Projection
Immigrant workers’ house at Setauket, NY
presented in collaboration with the Three Village Community Trust
148 Main Street, Setauket, October 2022
In collaboration with the Three Village Community Trust (TVCT), Gallery North presented an outdoor projection event featuring Han Qin’s multimedia work at the TVCT’s Immigrant Worker Houses, located behind the Bruce House at 148 Main Street in Setauket. This projection event highlighted the important experiences of all immigrant groups throughout the history of the Three Village community.
Han Qin’s My Father Land is a site-specific, outdoor video installation presented at the Immigrant workers’ house at Setauket, NY. The video installations evoke a continuous history of immigration and a synergy between the local history and the current residents. Night-time projections combining poetry and portraits from migrants, transforming the facade of the workers’ house into storyboards, looking back at those who built the history, while appreciating the immigrants who are building the community.
My Father Land aims to challenge common expectations of who are immigrants and the selective history represented in our civic spaces. Rethinking the construction of a community history by humanizing the historical sites. There is a temporary fusion of migrated individuals with their poems occupying a shared public site. The poems are chosen or even written by the individual. Enhancing the often-forgotten-historical-site with the often-invisible-migrants, My Father Land recognizes the infinite contributions which influence our understanding of place. The installations are customized for the site through the selection of the portraitures together with poems they provided.