February 20, 2015

“Self-preservation” opens at the Lewis Center for the ArtsInstallation by senior Wendy Li examines how memories are

created, erased, manipulated, and forgotten

Caption: Redacted pages from one of the artist’s personal diaries which are among the archival materials that form the basis for her exhibition.Credit: Photo by Wendy Li

What: “Self-preservation,” an installation examining how memories are created, erased, manipulated and forgotten Who: Created by senior in the Lewis Center’s Program in Visual Arts Wendy LiWhen: March 2-6; opening reception March 5 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.; installation open Monday-Friday, 12:00 to 7:00 p.m.Where: Room 301 at 185 Nassau St.Free and open to the public

(Princeton, NJ) The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University

will present “Self-preservation,” an installation by senior Wendy Li examining how memories

are created, erased, manipulated and forgotten. Installed in the format of a museum exhibition,

the work and objects document the artist’s process of remembering and of constructing history

and identity from images and documents. The work will be on view March 2 through 6 from

12:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Room 301 at 185 Nassau Street. A reception will be held on March 5 from

7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Li, from Philadelphia, is a major in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International

Affairs with a focus on international development and how economic development affects

women’s experiences. She is also earning certificates in French and in visual arts at the Lewis

Center. Her senior thesis project in her major relates in some ways to her artistic work.

“This is an exhibition about exhibiting,” explains Li. She draws upon an archive of family

photographs and written accounts, which span from 1930 to the present. Her family immigrated

to Canada from China in the 1980s and then moved to the U.S. These archival materials

document political and social revolutions, immigration, technological change, life and death as

experienced by Li and her family. “Just as much as we document our lives to remember, to

celebrate, and to share,” she notes, “the archives I explore are also shaped by pride, fear, shame,

and vulnerability. Yet what we see is also dictated by underlying political forces, such as

revolutions, reforms, and migration. I question not only what is shown, but what is absent, how

memories are created, erased, manipulated, and forgotten by ourselves and by the outside world.”

Among the materials Li has assembled that demonstrate the process of constructing memory and

history are the events and people that her family chose to photograph over the years and to

collect in albums. Her own personal diaries, kept from the age of 12, also represent how an

individual documents his or her own personal history. The exhibition will be installed much like

a historical museum, further demonstrating the conscious choices made about representing a

curated history.

Li’s ideas behind this project extend to thinking about the body as an archive. An individual’s

genetics and aging also document an individual’s life.

While not tied directly to her exhibition, Li’s senior thesis for her Woodrow Wilson School

concentration also explores changing cultural attitudes. Her research examines how increasing

participation of rural women in the workforce in China changes conceptions of female economic

empowerment in those regions.

To learn more about other upcoming exhibitions, the Program in Visual Arts, and the over 100

other events presented each year at the Lewis Center visit arts.princeton.edu.

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