This video installation employs the metaphor of the Chinese Five Elements to explore the discursive formation of queer Chinese diasporic identity from a non-Eurocentric/Western point of departure. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Five Elemental forces provide many applications to understanding daily life, identity, and relationships in addition to physical, mental, and emotional health. The elements help to approach and understand ways of “being” through principles of metaphysics and temporalities. We invoke these five elements in this installation as a conduit to understanding queer East Asian cultural formations, not as an intellectual delineation, but to interpret our own embodiment of queer Chinese, diasporic identities. We performed an ancestral veneration ceremony at Larwill Park in Vancouver, which was the gathering site of the anti-Oriental riots of 1907 to mark an image of the temporal relationship that the project Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny has amongst a history of anti-Asian racism in Canada. Giving offerings to our ancestors, reflecting on histories of colonization, founded upon systemic racism, and recognizing that these formations of anti-Asian racism and yellow peril exist to uphold imperialism - and never really goes away. Drawing on Simeon Mann and Dylan Rodriguez, Anti-Asian racism emerges when there’s an insecurity around the capitalist mode of production predicated on the seizure and extraction of Indigenous lands, and that anti-Asian violence is a structure to sustain racial devices inherent in racial capitalism and settler colonialism. Race, temporality, ancestry, and our relationships to land are themes that we grapple with in this project. A core part of our recent practice as queer Chinese artists is exploring the relationship between our identities as queer Asian artists and how our anti-racist arts practice can work in solidarity with struggles to decolonize. We are particularly interested in the recent (re)emergence of Anti-Asian racism and community (and governmental) responses that lean towards identity-based politics. We are interested in creating works that address systemic racism and colonization, and the roles that queer Chinese people play in undoing anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism.

Safe Distance explores queer Chinese individuals’ lived experiences and narratives in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was produced at a time when anti-Asian racism was soaring across the world in all forms. It examines themes that incorporate identity, intersectionality, mental health, discrimination, migration, the notion of home, and community. In the process of making this film, we realized that there is little documentation of queer Asian history. It is essential to establish a visual record of the lives of Chinese queer people in British-Chinese history, especially as the community is facing unprecedented discrimination and challenges in recent years. This project becomes a means to discuss with our community members how we can better improve our situation. Through Safe Distance, we compare the HIV pandemic in the 1980s with the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. She would like to remind people to stay alert to the history of ostracization and discrimination against the queer community in society. She also highlights how queer Chinese individuals experience a “double whammy” of racism and homophobia. By addressing the above issues, Jamie hopes to promote the message that “We should embody kindness and empathy with people from all walks of life” in her film.

Swinging on a seesaw, by the little beach, In the midst of the verdant green space, I find my own piece of paradise, A sanctuary for my mind to embrace. Gazing out at the lush greenery, I yearn for a sense of inner peace, But it eludes me, like a fleeting dream, As I wander, searching for release. I seek solace in the mountains and forests, But perhaps it's just a false hope I chase, For anxiety clings to me like a shadow, As I navigate this uneasy society's maze.