Yuǎn 遠 | Yuàn 苑

Yuǎn 遠 | Yuàn 苑 is a letterpress-printed artist's book that tells a story about housing and displacement via three generations of my maternal family, from Taiwan to the US.

The book interweaves my mother’s childhood stories about growing up in Keelung, Taiwan; my grandparents losing their home twice—first to the Chinese Nationalists who seized Taiwanese people’s properties and again when the US government eminent domained my grandparents’ house for freeway construction; and our present-day challenges as developers encroach upon my mother’s house in rural Kansas for suburban expansion.

In the last few years, my spouse and I have taken turns visiting my mother to do care work and to assert our presence to overly inquisitive realtors who are eager to displace older residents. Over meals I prepare and that we share with each other, my mother steps into one of her most profound roles as our family’s knowledge keeper. Her stories—simultaneously historical, allegorical, almost mythic, and sometimes prophetic—come alive.

My mother tells me that the character for Yuàn 苑 in her name is an ancient word that means “garden of the immortals,” or “the deer garden where the emperor’s sons practice hunting.”

She says that my late father loved her name, and that when he felt affectionate, he would call her Yuàn Yuàn. Though she herself laughs at why her family would choose a name that references gods and royalty who do not care about mortal and common people.

My mother believes her name means that she’s someone who is meant to stay, even if it means getting left behind.

I created my newest artist’s book, Yuǎn Yuàn, and the Deer Garden table at Women’s Studio Workshop in Kingston, New York, with the support of their wonderful staff members, especially Robert "Woody" Woodruff and Chris Petrone.