installation view, 2022. Photo: Allison Minto.
faa1/flor de la tierra con su protector, 2021-22. Silk organza, steel, nylon string, corn leaves, plastic glitter, floral wire and nails; 52 x 93 x 14 in. Photo: Sebastián Pérez.
faa1/flor de la tierra con su protector (detail), 2021-22. Silk organza, steel, nylon string, corn leaves, plastic glitter, floral wire and nails; 52 x 93 x 14 in. Photo: Meghan Olson.
nuestra ceiba, 2022. Dried chili peppers, chili pepper seeds, dried black beans, cinnamon, avocado pits, jade, glass beads, fishing line and nails (most of the food ingredients are from family, friends and shared meals); 7 x 12 x 6 ft. Photo: Sebastián Pérez.
hoi1 faa1/florecer, 2021-22. Nylon string, floral wire, corn husks, corn leaves, night blooming cereus and nails on wall; 44 x 35 x 6 in. Photo: Sebastián Pérez.
Found rope casted in aluminum; 14 x 12 x 1 in. Photo: Meghan Olson.
contra la pared, 2021-22. Avocado pits, achiote seeds, flor de jamaica, jasmine tea, chrysanthemum tea, orange peels, dried chili peppers, chili pepper seeds, dried black beans, cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds, peppercorn, star anise, bamboo leaves, White Rabbit candy casted in resin or sugar (most of the food ingredients are from family, friends and shared meals); 12 x 73 x 5 in. Photo: Sebastián Pérez.
contra la pared (detail), 2021-22. Avocado pits, achiote seeds, flor de jamaica, jasmine tea, chrysanthemum tea, orange peels, dried chili peppers, chili pepper seeds, dried black beans, cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds, peppercorn, star anise, bamboo leaves, White Rabbit candy casted in resin or sugar (most of the food ingredients are from family, friends and shared meals); 12 x 73 x 5 in. Photo: Sebastián Pérez.
contra la pared (detail), 2021-22. Avocado pits, achiote seeds, flor de jamaica, jasmine tea, chrysanthemum tea, orange peels, dried chili peppers, chili pepper seeds, dried black beans, cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds, peppercorn, star anise, bamboo leaves, White Rabbit candy casted in resin or sugar (most of the food ingredients are from family, friends and shared meals); 12 x 73 x 5 in. Photo: Meghan Olson.
aguas, 2021. Thread, glitter, dried chili peppers, floral wire and nails on wall; 17 x 20 x 2 in. Photo: Etienne Frossard.
Zoila Andrea Coc-Chang
b. Planet Earth
The looping metals, strung chili peppers, encapsulated sugar, and woven organza in my work are analogous to language. A language in which ephemeral ingredients entangle with everyday industrial materials creating throughlines of impermanence across spatiotemporal locales. I collect foods, like corn husks, avocado pits, and orange peels, in its various states of decomposition from family, friends, and shared meals. These materials become sculptural weavings and incarnate objects, spaces, and moments.
Honoring these relationships through materials and exchange while interrogating the complexities and intimacies between and within Asia and Americas, I form connections that are synonymous with migration and people’s relationships with home, foodways, and their everyday environments. I am interested in problematizing intersecting forms of lineage, sociality, and political economy that have shaped the collectivites and imaginaries of the dispossessed by drawing from cultural, familial, spiritual, and ecological histories, both chosen and inherited.
My art practice is rooted in playing with materials and repetitive mark-making to build up patterns and surfaces that offer new possibilities of existing beyond our struggles and cultural representations in discursive and metaphysical realms. These metaphorical gestures are deeply connected to my Chinese-Guatemalan roots and Miami upbringing, while considering the trans-continental kinship networks of my community.