Ellie Pei

Homesickness is a digital moving-image artwork. It is based on an unexpected encounter that I had in Chinatown, one involving my Chinese roots, at a time when I felt extremely homesick and lost in a new city. To create it, I edited my own pictures of Parisian buildings using blue and red colors, blurred them heavily, and layered them unevenly to represent the fluctuating emotions that I felt. To me blue represents uneasiness, while red, a warm color, represents both familiarity and my Chinese heritage and home. To convey my experience in Chinatown, I layered images showing outlines of the buildings, people, and foods I saw in the neighborhood. This technique allowed me to visually convey the feeling of being overwhelmed by new impressions. The layout style also referenced the prints found in Parisian souvenir shops, items I explored as a tourist. To further convey my experience, I drew an unfolded box floating around the background. To me, a closed box represents the way others perceive me; an open box is how I actually am, even though I am still searching.

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