Cathy Lu: Customs Declaration

For the most ambitious iteration of her ongoing installation project to date, CATHY LU strings together nearly 2,000 pieces of slipcast ceramic fruit into an elaborate net suspended over the bridge outside BAC. Lu has long been interested in various fruits as evocative reminders of distant homelands. As an artist of Taiwanese descent who grew up in Miami, her work unpacks how experiences of immigration, cultural hybridity, and cultural assimilation become part of the larger American identity.

Glazed in dark greens, golds, and blacks, the piece is ripe with papayas, pineapples, plantains, jackfruit, durians, bitter melons, ginger, and more. Members of the community were invited to participate by sharing their fruit stories via voice message. Selected recordings play as part of the piece during gallery hours.

About the Artist

Cathy Lu’s work manipulates traditional Chinese art objects and symbols as a way to deconstruct assumptions about Asian American identity and cultural authenticity. By creating ceramic-based sculptures and large-scale installations, she explores what it means to be both Asian and American, while not being entirely accepted as either. Lu lives and works in Richmond.

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