Artist honours family with knitted yum cha banquet
Bev Moon is a visual artist of Cantonese and Taishanese heritage and living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The Post sat down to chat with Moon about her touring exhibition Fortune, which is showing at Wairarapa's Aratoi Museum of Art and History till October...
Hi Bev! Can you tell us a bit about the origins of
Fortune and its links to your mother and grandmother?
Fortune is a tribute to my Chinese mother and grandmother, both incredible cooks and knitters. My family hails from Taishan in southern China, known for its early overseas Chinese immigrants in the 1800s. Those emigrating to New Zealand, the United States, Australia and Canada faced a poll tax (exclusively imposed on Chinese settlers) that made it hard for families to reunite, leading to generations of separation. For many decades right up until World War II, the Chinese population in New Zealand was overwhelmingly male. Most could not afford the £100 poll tax for their wives. The practice was for them to make home visits every few years. During WWII, the government allowed 500 Chinese women and children to join their husbands and fathers, and my grandmother and mother were among them.
During the 2021 Auckland lockdown, I challenged myself to knit dumplings in the shapes I made with my mother as a child. I started with BBQ pork buns and kept going, creating as many dishes as I could before March 2022, which would have been my mother’s 90th birthday.
Who taught you how to knit, and how long have you been doing it?
My mother taught me to knit when I was about 8 or 9. It’s fascinating to think my grandmother’s generation had limited opportunities and created their own patterns. I’ve made many items from others' patterns but for Fortune I crafted my own to truly claim it as my work. I started small without a big vision but, as the lockdown continued, I kept creating. Yum cha was a cherished tradition in my family, and I loved helping my mother fold dumplings.
What was the process of knitting all the dishes that feature in
I think I made over 150 pieces. It’s hard to say how long it took since I worked on it around my work commitments. The creative process involved both knitting and figuring out patterns, and it included working on failed prototypes as well. The lockdown lasted four months, and I added more dishes in January and February 2022 before photographing everything. So I suppose you could say the project occupied my headspace for six months.
And who are your biggest artistic inspirations?
It’s tough to narrow it down, as I admire many artists. I find it interesting that no one in my immediate family is artistic, which has always been a mystery to me. My late father's photo album has a few black and white images of a painter on his side, and I wish I knew more about him. I have an uncle and cousin who are artistic but have not put their talents to use. Apart from that, I cannot name anyone else in the family with an artistic bone in their body.
Finally, what's something not many people know about you?
I used to be a DJ called Mooncake, and in 2016, I changed my surname by deed poll to Moon.