Photo: Linards Platacs

I am Chun Chen (she/her), an artist. Born in Shanghai, I have lived in Switzerland since 2010. I work with ordinary objects and substances that carry personal and social histories: worn garments, fruit, family photographs and household utensils. My earlier research into migration and media now continues through material processes. Casting, moulding and imprinting recur throughout my practice. A fruit peel is burnt away inside a mould and reappears as a hollow bronze skin; a garment disappears in the kiln, leaving its imprint in porcelain; a family photograph is screen-printed in powdered spices.

The casting materials carry their own stories and live on in their new forms. A Swiss Fondue Chinoise pot and a bell, both gifts, were melted into the bronze of the peels. Fondue Chinoise is a Swiss dish whose name imagines China. Jujubes are sold in Switzerland as "Chinese dates", though they are not dates. I work with these mistranslations as material. I am interested in what survives when an object is translated into another material, and what cannot be carried over. What does the new object retain, and what becomes irretrievable?