Sounds of the Boundless Ocean is a body of work that unfolds across installation, soundtrack, photograph, and performance, acting as a portal between past and present. Inspired by the trans-Pacific journey of 19th-century Chinese immigrants to San Francisco, the work evokes the tensions of migration—hope, isolation, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. The installation’s tight ropes and soft curves of balloons suggest the constant interplay of forces, while dim lights flicker in rhythm with the soundtrack’s thudding beats, embodying the cyclical movements of history.

Through its kinetic construction and live performance, the piece suspends the viewer within temporal thresholds, guiding them through a lineage of racial trauma and immigrant experience. The movements shuttle between historical fragments and contemporary struggles, echoing the broader patterns of migration, where memory and identity dissolve and reform in constant flux. The balloons—fragile and unmoored—become metaphors for the migrant labor that shaped the American Empire, illustrating how identity and history, like labor, are reconstituted and perpetually in motion, never fixed but continuously emerging from cycles of erasure and regeneration.

Installation: 150’'(W) x 180''(L) x 160’'(H) | balloons, LED lights, LED controller, electrical wires, ropes, pulleys, railroad spikes, fabrics
Soundtrack: 7 minutes | two-channel sound recording, four speakers
Photograph: 24’’ x 36’’ | archival inkjet print
Performance: 7 minutes | performed live at the Coulter Gallery on February 22, 2023