ANGGREK
Gazing Back with Moyan Wang
by Dario Veréb
10 October 2025
Dario Veréb: You have a lot of different styles — textile, drawing, and of course sculpture. Did you know right away which direction you wanted to go, or was there more of a finding process?
Moyan Wang: Initially, I only painted, mostly on fabric or paper. Then I discovered that I really enjoy handcrafting. I’ve become increasingly drawn to ceramics because it’s so tactile and filled with sensation. It feels very grounding. The same goes for textiles — I’ve been sewing as a casual hobby for a long time, though I’m not especially skilled at it. The repetitive, tactile action and the softness of the fabric are soothing.
Part of the theme in my work is finding grounding in precarity and diaspora. Both feel critically relevant to what I do, and I genuinely enjoy making with my hands.
Recently I’ve also been learning papier-mâché to incorporate into my ceramics — it acts as a kind of platform or vessel. I’ve been using a lot of recycled materials, which are both environmentally friendly and responsive to my surroundings. North Carolina has very interesting clay — either super red, super yellow, and some white clay in the mountains.
During the age of colonialism, Britain actually sent expeditions to North Carolina looking for pure white clay to imitate Chinese porcelain. I, however, use whatever raw clay I find around me rather than searching for the “pure” kind.
Moyan: Yes — it’s everywhere. When people dig in their gardens or when construction happens, I often find beautiful red or orange clay near those sites.
That’s how I draw from both my surroundings and historical references when I search for materials. I pull from Chinese traditions, but I also try to deviate from them. In my fabric works, for example, I take inspiration from the lacquer-and-fabric combinations found in Chinese mortuary practices. Traditionally, those materials were believed to help transport the deceased to heaven. I reimagine that into fabric sculpture rather than following the tradition directly.
Dario: What drew you to those traditions, especially ones so ancient that you don’t have a direct connection to them? Why did you still find something in them that you can work with in your art?
Moyan: At first, I was simply drawn to their visual power. Later I realized there’s a lingering ghost of that ancient spirit in my life. My grandparents, though I’m not personally very close to them, kept ritualistic objects. Those influenced how they understood the world, and that worldview was passed down through generations.
People often talk about heritage as something glorious. For me, it’s both disconnected and enchanting — but also potentially traumatizing. It creates generational trauma, difficulties in making connections, and a sense of insecurity within families. I try to reflect on that critically, to explore how the grand cultural narrative differs from real, lived experience.
Dario: Were you born in China?
Moyan: Yes, I was born in China, though I moved a lot within the country. I was born in the far northwestern region, where there’s a massive tomb beneath the city — built when China was expanding its territory. The area once housed many military figures.
Today the surface looks bleak and economically underdeveloped, especially the town I lived in, but the underworld beneath it is vibrant. China uses that tomb as a symbol of national heritage and pride, but for me, it feels both connected and disconnected — because it represents expansionism that began two thousand years ago. That contrast sparked my critical thinking about Chinese mortuary and ancestral practices.
Dario: It feels like your work deals more with your Chinese heritage than your current surroundings — as if it’s more reflective of the values and traditions you brought from China. Would you say it’s a balance, or more one side than the other?
Moyan: Coming to North Carolina allows me to reflect on those traditions from a distance — to look back at them through an outsider’s gaze. It lets me see how others, through an orientalist imagination, perceive Chinese traditions.
I don’t think my experience is tied to geography. These traditions transcend political borders and linger like a ghostly presence. Even outside China, I still feel them, and I follow what happens there closely. My generational trauma and cultural heritage resurface again and again, no matter where I am. So my sense of contemporaneity isn’t tied to location.
Dario: Is there something you feel is often misunderstood when Westerners look at China, especially in terms of traditions?
Moyan: Yes, that’s an interesting topic. The misunderstandings come partly from China’s own self-presentation — the grand propaganda of how it markets itself to the West — and partly from the historical lens of colonialism, even before the People’s Republic existed.
There’s a long history of both Orientalist imagination and Chinese nationalism, and these two forces shape how people see China. Take ceramics — Westerners often think of “pure” blue-and-white porcelain, but Chinese ceramics are actually incredibly diverse and closely connected to everyday life. That famous blue-and-white aesthetic isn’t even purely Chinese; the blue mineral was imported from Persia.
So China, in reality, is diverse and not as “oriental” as many assume. Porcelain, for example, has a long association with burial practices that Western audiences might find abject rather than beautiful. Meanwhile, modern Chinese nationalism often embraces the same Orientalist gaze, building pride around what the West has historically found desirable — like the “pure” porcelain.
So the image of China today is shaped by both Western fascination and internal nationalism, while more vernacular, everyday traditions are often overlooked or suppressed.
Dario: Coming back to your works — they clearly reflect those ideas. Your art isn’t blue-and-white porcelain; it’s rougher, more visceral. How much of you is in it, and how much is a commentary on culture and history?
Moyan: They’re completely entangled. My personal experience is influenced by broad forces — politics, history — but also by intimate, generational issues like gender ideologies and family values. I experience patriarchy on a micro level; that’s one example of how intertwined personal and cultural forces are.
You can’t really separate identity from external forces. It’s all mixed together — and that’s what makes the work honest.
Dario: I like that. It answers the question beautifully — it’s not fifty-fifty; it’s both entirely personal and entirely cultural.
There’s a lot to unpack in your art. So if people come to the exhibition Gazing Back and leave with just one impression, what should that be?
Moyan: A sense of sorrow. I remember my professor at SMFA once said, “This makes me feel sad,” before I even explained my cultural or personal background. That emotion — sorrow, or a lingering ghostliness — is what I hope people feel.
I incorporate fragments of broken heritage, deconstruct them, and bring them to a level of mourning or memorial. The works hold personal and cultural trauma — reflections on displacement, both geographical and emotional. Even if viewers don’t share my background, I hope they sense that general sorrowful and ghostly presence.
Dario: I don’t want to pry into personal trauma, but I wonder — how much of that trauma is cultural? Does it come from who you are, or from how others have seen you?
Moyan: Cultural difference in the U.S. doesn’t trouble me much. What haunts me more is the lingering ghost of Chinese ideology — those old cultural expectations that follow me even here.
Of course, I face racism and misunderstanding in the U.S., but it’s the shadow of ancient beliefs that feels heavier. Coming to the U.S. was both displacement and opportunity — a way to step outside that ghostly veil and exist in a more diverse environment.