horror vacui, timor dimittendae rei (fear of empty spaces, fear of letting go) (in progress)

This is my father’s basement.

When he was a young child, my grandmother fleed political unrest and fear of starvation in the mainland of China. She journeyed 30 miles on foot with three young children, breaking down a door from an abandoned home to use as a raft to ferry them across the Sham Chun River to seek refuge in Hong Kong, then a British colony. She would swim alongside the makeshift raft back and forth until she got my aunt, uncle, and father across. Back then, if you were caught trying to escape, you were usually killed on site.

<Insert my parent’s intense and long immigration story that would cover three continents over 10 years here>

My father and mother have built a life here. My father has had to let go of many things I’ve taken for granted; toys, friends, family, books, and even birthdays, which to this day there’s still no official record of. As a result, he hangs on to the nostalgia of objects as if they still inhabit the time and space of when and where they provided joy or some other utilitarian service. In his own way, he’s a outsider artist designer who’s aesthetics are informed by loss and a desire to collect the things he’s missed out on and sentiments that are irretrievable.