回 (huí) is a multimedia installation that delves into conditioning. Beginning with behavioral conditioning and extending to the consideration of societal norms, the work unfolds in a paradoxical loop where unlearning transforms into a form of learning, deconditioning becomes a nuanced conditioning, and deconditioned behavior forges a new social norm. The conditioned outer reality, the enigmatic in-between, and an inner chamber are three enclosed membranes that form the character “回,” a traced path that leads back to where one never truly departed. Outside of the boundary of the installation is the familiar everyday reality. Upon entering the in-between chamber, visitors are invited to sign a contract with their thumbprints—an actualization of the assumed social contract embedded since arrival. Fragmented words float suspended in a thin paste of shaving gel and glue, actively dissolving on their way to becoming residues. Viewers are conditioned through the set of processes, language, and meaning reinforced by me. The inner chamber, veiled by sheer curtains, embodies a void. This installation experience culminates as visitors exit the inner chamber, traverse the in-between space, and re-emerge into the external reality. This path draws out the shape of “回,” returning to the outer reality never actually left. However, going through sets of conditions inside the installation allows viewers to see their conditions. If every moment we are a different self, when viewers return to the same outer reality, they are no longer the same self anymore. The installation embodies my paradox of seeking deconditioning; the core of this endeavor lies in the struggle itself. This is because achieving deconditioning—should it even be possible—immediately establishes a new condition. Therefore, I ponder in this work that the process of struggling is, in essence, deconditioning itself.

Growing up Chicano, I know that there are interconnections between gang life and Chicano culture. Throughout research and conducted interviews I was able to examine the importance of clothing as a part of one's identity in both cultures. The results shown through ceramic busts.

This video essay focuses on the use of scientific-based meteorological information as a means of shaping political unity in Taiwan as a turbulent state. After providing a brief overview of the history of informed weather announcements through electronic media-based reports from the 20th century - with an emphasis on East Asian regions - and their evolution in relation to ideals of nationality, I contend that governments strategize the publication of weather events such as smog to form public consensus during seasons of political turmoils and antagonize border nations. In addition, they utilize isolated weather satellite imagery during online weather castings to strengthen ideas of nationality by consciously selecting regions and borders to present on screen. For smaller governments that lack the technology, the representational choices of what and how to display their territory in weather segments indicate the mood of how the government wants to be perceived by its own people. Techniques of producing and circulating weather information morphs alongside instruments, networks, and political climates. For example, commercialized television stations and other forms of media enhance the spread of ideals by the spectacular influence of severe weather events. Therefore, information promoted by national weather services is used for sustaining political orders rather than a service for public welfare.

In this project, I explore the settler colonial dynamics that shape Wilderness Therapy, a for-profit carceral institution that has come under scrutiny for allegations of abuse despite their mission of curing “troubled teens” through the healing benefits of the outdoors. Specifically, I investigate the relationship of Wilderness Therapy to Indigenous land dispossession, violent cure-based medical models, and power and privilege within incarcerated communities. As someone who has been to Wilderness Therapy, I am interested in exploring the web of entanglements among carceral institutions, and how my experience and research can dismantle the carceral state and prioritize equitable reparations. My research takes the form of a novel written in a hybrid structure that braids fiction and nonfiction sections. The fiction part of my novel follows a student through her journey at Desert Destinies, a made-up Wilderness Therapy Center based on the average statistics of my research. The thesis of the nonfiction work postulates that Wilderness Therapy perpetuates slow colonial violence, meaning violence that replicates colonial structures and takes place in hidden ways over such a long period of time that it is invisibilized and naturalized. My research has taken many different forms and has been guided by various methodological approaches, including ethnographic research; close readings of archival documents, including my own journals from my time incarcerated; bibliographic research in the fields of Indigenous Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, and the Environmental Humanities; and creative writing. Through this project, I hope to imagine a decolonial future beyond the carceral state in which we address the slow violence inflicted by society on a personal and community level.