Begins With Tea

Begins with Tea, 2013, family photos printed on joss paper, grains, seeds, herbs, and dried noodles from Bà Ngoại’s (Grandmother) kitchen, encapsulated in Bà Ngoại’s used tea bags, hung from Bà Ngoại's sewing needles (gifted by Chị Tu, her eldest grandchild, and inherited by me), installed with wood-handled, hand-sized hammer that once belonged to her oldest sister, Bà Tien. 4 1/2 x 1 3/4" each of 212 pieces

While my 85-year old Bà Ngoại sips her afternoon tea, she shares with me stories of old as childhood memories and cookie crumbs scatter before us upon her dining table. I had begun saving her tea bags and filling them with old photographs from our family archive, encapsulating these photos in Bà Ngoại's used tea bags to signify our time together during which these precious memories are relived. The contents consist of seeds, herbs, grains and noodles, which are used in traditional Vietnamese dishes, many of whose recipes were passed down to her by her mother, and her mother’s mother, and most likely her mother’s mother’s mother, trickling far down the maternal lineage, perhaps gently altered by each generation of heirs. I've gathered these ingredients from her pantry, along with seeds from the fruits found in her kitchen and plucked from her garden. And as I incorporate them into these delicate pockets, I marvel in the thought that every living thing, and all its succeeding generations, are born from seed.