인사 Greeting

Tāmaki Makaurau-based ceramic artist Yeonjae Choi explores ideas around femininity and race in a new suite of figurative clay vessels.

Drawing from her experience as second-generation Asian immigrant growing up in Aotearoa, '인사 Greeting' references the specific racial micro-aggressions Choi has encountered throughout her life from strangers appropriating her mother’s language, using Ni Hao or Annyeounghaseyo to distinguish her as ‘other’.

Choi juxtaposes her own experience through an installation of her clay figures, who gently greet each other and acknowledge each of their complexities. Choi looks closely at the contrast between exterior and interior. Each of her figures incorporates a delicate face-shaped window carved into the clay, that encourages strangers to come closer and look beyond their surface through refracted glass.

Yeonjae Choi. 'Mole Lamp' (detail) (2022). Courtesy of the artist.

Showing at the Homestead Galleries from 8 April-29 May. Open daily from 10am-4.30pm.