Designed by Los Angeles-based artist Misa Chhan (they/them), Year of the Snake is a two-part installation composed of 20 flags and 10 aluminum prints that honor the legacy and resilience of Cambodian diasporic communities and the artist’s own family. To create each series of works, the artist drew upon a range of domestic materials –curtains, doilies, archival family photo albums, and furniture from their family home– and continued their exploration of the color blue via indigo dyeing and cyanotype processes. Taken together, Chan’s installation explores how we make home and belonging through journeys from one country to another, from one realm to another, and even in the everyday transitions and changes from one moment to the next. 

Displayed in an accordion format which echoes a common format for artist books, 10 photo-collage aluminum prints tell the story of Chhan’s parents, who immigrated to the United States from Cambodia to escape the brutality of war under the Khmer Rouge regime. The artist selected images of their parents in refugee camps learning English as a Second Language, raising the artist and their sibling in Section 8 housing, and learning how to run a donut business. Like thousands of families in the Cambodian diaspora, Chhan’s family joined the West Coast donut business community as a pathway to obtaining immigration sponsorship and making a living in the United States. 

Cyanotype prints made from vintage curtains wrap and partly cover the photographs in a hazy, dream-like way, as though the breeze was blowing through a window, nodding to the domesticity of trying to nest and find home through memories. Domestic elements from the artist’s home life such as sewing, lace curtains, doilies, photo albums, and cross stitching, are utilized to further invoke home.

One print features an engraved traditional Cambodian Sak Yant tattoo used with permission by the Federation of Khmer Sakyantra. This tattoo is a combination of 5 elements: water for peace, calm, and good luck; earth for protection, prevention, and grounded health; fire for strength, energy, and power; wind for strength, energy, and support; space for meditation and peace of mind.

The intention of the engraving is to allow the viewer to participate and create a talisman of the five elements by creating a rubbing of the drawing.

Across 10 cyanotype-printed flags, Chhan positioned the Chinese character, fu, meaning ‘blessing’ and ‘luck’, between the double imprint of a headboard made by the artist’s father. Digitally manipulated to appear upside down, the character fu is commonly hung in this way so that blessings may pour into the receiver’s life and as a wish for prosperity to descend upon a dwelling. In this work, Chhan honors their father who passed on five years ago. For the 10 indigo-dyed flags, the artist drew inspiration from Octavia Butler’s iconic speculative fiction novel Parable of the Sower. Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth heavily affected by climate change and social inequality, a main tenet within the novel is “The only lasting truth is Change,” meaning that change is the fundamental reality, and humans can shape and direct it, rather than relying on a divine being for guidance. Chhan stitched this quote atop an indigo shibori-dyed spider web –a symbol of strength, community, and connection– all things that help us survive and thrive through change.