Lily & Honglei on Using Old Stories to Heal New Wounds

Lily: We are long-term residents of Flushing’s Chinatown. Since the pandemic began, we have witnessed how the local economy got hit hard, with so many businesses shutting their doors permanently and so many residents losing their jobs. Even worse, Asian immigrant community members, especially the elderly and women, became the targets of Asian hate violence. Many of our family members and friends living in the Flushing area were forced to live in isolation because of the fear of being attacked on the streets. The only outdoor places they still visited were a handful of public parks in downtown Flushing where they could get together to play chess and cards, exercise, or babysit.

As artists, we are really heartbroken by the isolation that our community members have been suffering. Because of cultural and language barriers, isolation has been a long-term issue for Asian enclaves in Flushing, which has the largest number of Chinese and Korean immigrants in New York City. The pandemic drastically exacerbated the problem. Some of our friends and family members experienced mental breakdowns due to the isolation. This situation motivated us to create a public art project which can bring healing and make a strong voice for the Asian immigrant community.

Through “The Red String,” we intend to spotlight the cultural heritage of Asian immigrants. In our experience, cultural heritage can bring community members together through its strong healing function. We also hope that by sharing our cultural heritage through public art, other groups of people in the city can grow their understanding of the Asian immigrant community.

Honglei: The stories told in “The Red String” are based on our immigrant experience, as well as some ancient Chinese folktales. Some animations feature works from our painting series, “Life of the Invisibles.” One of the stories is about Lao Liu, a real person who I met when I worked in a Chinese restaurant in NYC. He worked many low-paying jobs such as in a vegetable farm, nail salon, doing massage, renovation, and finally collecting bottles and cans on the street. These are typical job options for Chinese new immigrants.

We found a lot of similarities between Asian immigrants’ life and ancient Chinese folk stories. Those hundred-year-old stories can be easily related to people suffering today. We place the ancient characters in today’s American society to reflect the isolation, family separation, and hard conditions in new immigrants’ life. In the work, Butterfly Lovers, we reinterpret the namesake Chinese folktale. This thousand-year-old legend depicts a tragic love story often regarded as the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. The animation reimagines the scenarios from the original story, illustrating the butterfly lovers dressed in traditional Chinese opera costumes, roaming Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, the subway station at night.

SL: Do people recognize the stories when they’re viewing these works?

SL: What has the reception been like, generally?

SL: When did you begin working with augmented reality? What attracts you to the medium?

Lily: As for what attracts us to AR, we think augmented reality is an effective channel connecting our studio art practice with social engagement. “The Red String” perfectly embodies this. “The Red String” combines several of our current and earlier projects, including several painting series and animations that took years to complete. Generally speaking, our projects often start with creating oil paintings on canvas and then composing short animations based on the painting series.

We have presented paintings and time-based artworks in many museums and galleries, however, we have always had a strong conviction that art should directly communicate with the public beyond the boundary of museums and galleries. Art can directly reflect realities and deliver meaning and beauty to audiences in public spaces, including both physical and cyber space. The smartphone AR technology allows us to present our paintings and time-based artworks in outdoor settings such as public parks within a limited budget.

For “The Red String,” we spent months figuring out the best AR solution that is easy and fun to use for the viewers. It doesn’t require installing any additional apps on the phone. In the park, visitors can simply scan QR codes on the banners with their smartphone cameras and watch the banners come to life through web-based augmented reality.

Honglei: Lily and I are a husband and wife artist collaborative. We are partners both in life and art. We met each other in an art school in China when we were 17 years old. We have been through everything together since then. We made decisions together on artwork, life direction, and political standpoints. It was extremely hard to pursue freedom of expression in an autocratic country, so our support of each other was essential for our art practice in searching for social justice.

Honglei: In 2005, when we were in grad school, Lily had the idea to start the team, Lily & Honglei. We began to combine our strengths in different media to make interdisciplinary works. Because of the bond and understanding that we built throughout the decades, the collaboration has been an enjoyable and exciting journey. So the team Lily & Honglei was officially founded in 2005, but the collaboration started long before that.

Honglei: Right now we are focusing on the painting series, “Life of the Invisible,” reflecting the life of Asian immigrants. One work, Our Broadway Showcase, is based on my experience working as a portrait artist at Times Square. We were only allowed to work after midnight, when Times Square turned into a ghost town with neon signs. Our state of mind resonated with the desolate surroundings. These details depict the real incidents my colleagues and I experienced. Another work, Casualty of the American Dream, is a triptych that depicts real stories of my Chinese immigrant friends, who all died young because of harsh life conditions. On the left, it tells the story of a very close friend of mine who was killed by a garbage truck while delivering Chinese food in Manhattan. The middle panel depicts a young immigrant artist who vomited a lot of blood on the street and died in hospital shortly after. The one on the right illustrates my artist friend who was murdered, and his case quickly turned cold because he didn’t have family in America to pursue it.