Sophie Wang, “Do You Speak Second Gen?”


Sophie Wang
Minneapolis, MN
https://www.wangshuf.com
Instagram:  @shufshenwang

Do You Speak Second Gen?
2023
12-page stab-bound artist’s book printed on transparencies and bound with black 4-ply waxed thread.
Artist Book: 9.5″x11″

Artist Statement

Chinese is my first language but also my second. It is both familiar and distant, evokes both trouble and comfort. This artist’s book contains 12 lenses through which I view my relationship with this language that I speak as a second generation immigrant. Perhaps it is relatable to you, perhaps you will share a lens or two, perhaps you too know your vegetables best.

And yet, what is the second generation a generation of? Something I thought quite a lot about as I originally made this zine is that there is no single or universal answer to that question. These are experiences with my “home” language that in their specificity might be relatable, but ultimately are just single facets of the infinitely complex and multitudinal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants. So assembling this book with transparencies overlaid on one another which together read “the second generation is a generation of [something completely indecipherable/incomprehensible/that contains too much to be legible]” felt like a truer, more valid way to share my thoughts about my experience than on opaque paper pages that stand alone as definitive statements.