Alvin Luong 梁超洪

In Life Preserver, a walk along the water leads to the discovery of a mysterious bundle that has washed ashore onto a beach. The video follows someone trying to make sense of the bundle as they carry, grasp, look through, and wear it. With a magic realist twist, the bundle becomes a portal to glimpse at freighters and ships passing through the South China Sea, which is a body of water that has both ended and started many stories of people seeking another land to find a safe haven from nationalism, war, and poverty.

The project is derived from a curiosity about the history and physical properties of meatballs eaten in the food cultures of Asia Pacific. These meatballs are characteristically buoyant in liquids, such as soups, and have been integrated into the various food cultures of Asia Pacific through generations of sea migration between different shores in the region. In Life Preserver these meatballs find their way to the shores of Toronto bundled together as a makeshift water floatation device.

Life Preserver was commissioned by The Bentway and co-presented by the City of Toronto. The video installation was originally shown at the Donald D. Summerville Olympic Pool at Woodbine Beach in Toronto. Life Preserver was also filmed at Woodbine Beach. The production of Life Preserver was made possible through the labour of the cast and crew, Christine Vu, who was the performer in the video, and Steven Beckly, who was the camera assistant. Production stills were made by Steven Beckly. Special thanks to Xiaoyao Xu who supported the production of Life Preserver by providing footage of the South China Sea.

Life Preserver (Sculpture). 2020 - 2022. 20 x 20 x 50”. Plaster, acrylic, shrink plastic, plastic ribbon, carabiners.

In The Arrival, we follow the artist traversing through Toronto while throwing meatballs at each dwelling that the artist’s parents have lived in since immigrating to Toronto from Ho Chi Minh City. Through a mixture of point-of-view perspectives and establishing shots that convey worsening weather conditions, the video crescendos into a magic realist storm that sends the artist to the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City just after a monsoon. The Saigon River flows directly into the South China Sea which is a focal point in the artwork Life Preserver.

As a sequel to the artwork Life Preserver, The Arrival builds upon a curiosity about the history and physical properties of meatballs eaten in the food cultures of Asia Pacific, with a concentration on the characteristic bounciness of the meatballs. In The Arrival, the meatballs are taken out of their packaging and are hastily thrown at places of dwelling much like an emergency landing. The vulgar act of throwing the meatballs and their turbulent landing upon different dwellings in Toronto is reflective of a lack of control in a dire process of migration.

The Arrival was commissioned by the Koffler Centre of the Arts for the program A Matter of Taste that focused upon food and its politics and rituals curated by Letticia Cosbert Miller. Special thanks to Maximillian Suillerot Wilke for production assistance.