Sheng Lor
Sheng Lor is a visual artist whose work explores the refugee memory as a site of knowledge. Working with textile-informed processes, her practice aims to reimagine cloth as a medium for discourse, enacting secrets and silences through patterns and materials. Sheng was born in a refugee camp and raised in the U.S. She is currently a candidate in the UCLA MFA program.
Statement on Dab Neeg Phau
"Pages 8-46" is a skirt that was once a book; in its pleats are transcriptions of Hmong dab neeg folktales that were previously recorded orally. According to legends, the pleats of Hmong skirts held hieroglyphs that Hmong people used in order to protect their histories while on the run, but for which the code has been lost. "Pages 8-46" is part of a series of works by Sheng which explores both the concealment and the emergence of refugee secrets and what that process resolves to protect or threatens to expose.