Lap-See Lam Tales of the Altersea (Starboard)

Focus, December 06, 2024

Lap-See Lam explores questions of interpretation, representation and identification in her practice working both with contemporary technology as well as traditional references and techniques. With symbolic features from traditional forms of storytelling such as shadow plays, to the décor of Western Chinese restaurants, her works becomes an allegory for the experience of the Cantonese diaspora.

In the work, Tales of the Altersea (Starboard), Lam delves into almost magical imaginations of Chinoiserie, defined by imperialist trading, while reflecting on the reality of migration to both claim ownership of and complicate the idea of cultural heritage – a duality that characterises the artist’s mythical installations. Together with the works Port, Stern, and Bow – the other neon sculptures in the suite – it traces the outlines of the dragon head and tail at the bow and stern of the ship Sea Palace.

Tales of the Altersea, as told by the artist, centre around The Sea Palace, a dragon-shaped, three-story floating restaurant, a dragon-shaped, three-story floating restaurant that sailed from Shanghai to Europe in the early 1990s. Now retired, the ship served as a haunted house at Stockholm's Gröna Lund amusement park until recently. Its journey and aesthetic, anchored in a historic reality, inform the artist’s fictional narrative and materialise the works.

*Tales of the Altersea (Starboard)*, 2023