Intangible Thread - Part I, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 2022

When Xiangmei Su was a child, a large wooden loom stood at the center of our living room in Suzhou. Her mother would spend hours weaving, the rhythmic creak of the shuttle filling our home with warmth. This intimate memory of care and tradition became a lasting thread in her life.

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As China modernized, the loom fell silent, and traditional crafts faded. Her family joined the wave of migration, moving from the countryside to the city—and eventually, she crossed the ocean to Canada. Life in a new country brought both peace and dislocation. She struggled to adapt while feeling the quiet pull of where she came from. Between cultures, she began to ask: Who was she?

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To answer this question, she turned to art. Her paintings combine memories of the loom with the structures of modern industry, symbolizing the layered transformation of time, culture and identity. Alongside these, she creates a large-scale installation of handmade pinwheels—objects from her Suzhou childhood—spinning gently in space. Together, the paintings and the pinwheel installation speak of migration, memory, and the invisible forces—like wind and time—that shape who she is.

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Through paintings and installation, Su transforms personal history into shared experience. Her art becomes a space where tradition and change meet, and where new forms of belonging begin to grow.​