THE MESS YOU MADE

 

Andrea Chung, a San Diego-based, interdisciplinary artist who examines the complex intersections between material, process, history and place. Born to a Trinidadian mother and a Jamaican father, Chung considers herself Caribbean-American. Rich in research, process, and at times intensely laborious; Chung's work concerns itself with the far reaching effects of colonization in the Caribbean region.

 

Chung will often utilize a single process or material to expose the multifaceted aspects of history, migration and labor to unmask the repercussions of colonization that often go unnoticed by those who benefit. Chung has stated, “I hope that people will consider labor and its complicated relationships with cultures that have developed from the descendants of people who were coerced into colonial workforces.”

 

For The Mess You Made, Chung focuses on “the legacies of tools and their unintended use in the hands of the colonized.” Each tool, made and cast from sugar, will be hung and cast in overwhelming amounts to create an enveloping installation. These objects are not only symbolic of a much larger story, the material sugar also speaks volumes.

 

All of the materials I use have a history to them. Sugar is a very loaded material” says Chung. “Slaves were brought from all over the world to harvest cane for people’s sugar addiction. I think we take it for granted now, and we don’t really think about how many people’s lives have been affected by the most mundane things like sugar and salt and dyes.”

 

Andrea Chung received a BFA at Parsons School of Design and an MFA at the Maryland Institute of College of Art. Chung has participated in several residencies including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Headlands, Vermont Studio Center, the McColl Center for Visual Arts and the Joan Mitchell Center. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, an Art Matters Grant and the Joan Mitchell Award. Her work has been published in ARC, Small Axe, Harvard’s Transitions and Representations and the Huffington Post. Chung has exhibited nationally and internationally in institutions such as Syracuse University, McColl Center for Visual Arts, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Arthouse, Medulla Gallery in Trinidad, apex art, Deutsche Bank, Royal

West of England Academy, Punkt Ø F 15 in Norway and the 2017 Jamaican Biennial. Her fist solo museum show, You Broke the Ocean in Half Just to be Here...debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in May 2017 and will travel to the UC Davis in 2018. Her work is currently at the Chinese American Museum and the California African American Museum as part of the 2017 Pacific Standard Time and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art for Prospect 4: New Orleans The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, curated by Trevor Schoonmaker.