Kenneth W.
Google
Against the warm, inviting red walls of Think!Chinatown, artist Jia Sung’s Winged Seeds zine launch and exhibition unfurled a poignant, textured meditation on diasporic memory, migration, and quiet survival. The room buzzed with soft conversations as guests, seated on blue stools, paged through hand-bound zines and traced embroidered portraits stitched with care and history.
The zine, also titled Winged Seeds, acts as a visual companion to the textile works—its cover echoing a faded family photograph, bound delicately with red thread. Each copy invites readers into an ongoing act of remembrance and reconstruction.
At the heart of Jia’s exhibition is the metaphor of “invasive species”—plants like mugwort, kudzu, and dandelion—long misunderstood, yet thriving across borders. Jia reclaims these forms as symbols of resilience, entanglement, and transformation. Through this lens, migration is not framed as damage or intrusion, but as life pushing through constraint. Her painted textile portraits, bordered by embroidered flora, visualize the fragmented genealogies left in the wake of war, separation, and systemic erasure.
Family stories—spanning Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and the U.S.—are recounted in bilingual labels, each stitched panel tenderly reframing historical absence. One portrait remembers a father separated by war; another captures a mother and baby in a Vietnamese hotel, paused between departure and arrival. These are not just personal stories, but collective ones—layered and transnational.
A highlight of the evening was the vibrant discussion between Jia and graphic designer Ray, who contributed to the zine’s striking visual layout. Their exchange with the audience reflected on collaboration, typographic choices, and how to hold visual space for difficult histories. On the side table, another zine was displayed—this one featuring queer gods and mythological creatures. It sparked a moment of reflection: I asked Ray whether these mythic, often displaced or under-told narratives might also fall under the umbrella of queer art. Surprisingly Jia's thoughtful response opened up yet another dimension of reading across the works present.
Although Jia is now based in New York, we briefly exchanged thoughts about her earlier years in Singapore—a small detail, but one that resonated deeply within the show’s themes of layered belonging and cultural navigation.
More than a launch, Winged Seeds was a softly powerful act of remembering, reframing, and rooting. An offering to all who carry stories across oceans and generations—and a reminder that even so-called “invasives” bloom.
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