Mission

CarryOn Homes is dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants and refugees in the USA through art. By engaging the public with cross-cultural dialogue, we create spaces for immigrants and marginalized communities to feel a sense of belonging and empowerment

Artist Statement

CarryOn Homes is a team of five artists from five countries: Zoe Cinel (Italy), Preston Drum (USA), Aki Shibata (Japan), Peng Wu (China) and Shun Jie Yong (Malaysia). Being an artist group comprised of immigrants and transplants, they have experienced the difficulty of adapting to a new cultural context while attempting to maintain a sense of identity and find a community. Being an immigrant in the USA is a complicated condition that is both humbling and empowering. Drawing on this experience they seek to create artworks that offer a sense of belonging to those who are disenfranchised.

Through their collaborative art projects, they have developed relationships with immigrant communities in the Twin Cities, such as, Indigenous Roots, Hope Community, SEAD: Sound East Asian Diaspora, among others. These partnerships have brought to light many questions, most centrally, how can they as artists and immigrants, better serve their communities and how can they foster cross cultural dialogue?

The COH team believe in the power of art to connect people and have channeled this ethos to create projects that open spaces and share resources. While CarryOn Homes’ practice is diverse in mediums, ranging from photography and videography to sculpture and interactive performance, what unites their body of work is the empowerment of the viewer and the participant. Not only do they create visual art objects, situations, and environments but, they organize community events, meals, and workshops.

The CarryOn Homes’ approach to artmaking is to consider people first and form second, through this process, the team construct platforms for interactions in service of the community.

History

Future Vision

The COH team continues to deepen relationships with local organizations and other artists groups in hopes of telling even more stories and creating spaces for continuous dialogue.

2019

COH team continues to work with storytelling and portraiture of immigration and migration in the USA. The team has been creating public events based art works and creative spaces together with Indigenous Roots, Weisman, MInneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, and the Concordia University Gallery. The team’s mindset has been focused on thinking about many aspects surrounding education, art making, immigration and migration.

2018 - CarryOn Homes Artists Collective Born

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Peng Wu and Shunjie Yong invited Behavioral artist, Aki Shibata, interdisciplinary artist, Zoe Cinel and installation artist, Preston Drum to join the CarryOn Homes team to propose and create a public art project for the 2018 Creative City Challenge, called CarryOn Homes at the Commons. The project was a multi-functional pavilion in the shape of house made of more than 150 suitcases. The pavilion included interactive sculpture, a stage for performance, a healing garden, a photo exhibit, a documentary film, and a suitcase wall where people posted hand written stories. It became platform for performances by and for immigrant communities.  After the success of the project, the COH team has grown robustly with the support and partnerships with the local immigrant communities. The mission of COH has evolved to not only collecting and sharing the life stories of migrants but also bringing the stories to the public and creating spaces for cross-cultural dialogues. With this new mission, the team decided to form the CarryOn Homes Artists Collective.

2017 - Founding of CarryOn Homes Photography and Storytelling Project

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Social practice artist Peng Wu and photographer Shunjie Yong co-founded CarryOn Homes Photography and Storytelling Project. Wu and Yong started to invite their immigrant and refugee friends for interviews and photo shoots. Artists asked every guest to bring an object they carried from their home countries to the US, then interviewed them about their journeys and the stories behind their objects. After the interviews, Yong created portraits of them with their objects. For immigrants these objects feel like small pieces of homes that can fit in carry-on luggage. For this reason, Wu named the project CarryOn Homes. The photographs and audio from the interviews were exhibited in galleries, and public spaces throughout the Twin Cities. The CarryOn Homes Photograph and Storytelling Project remains an open platform for any immigrants and refugees who want to share their stories.

 

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Featured
Zoe Cinel
Zoe Cinel

Originally from Florence, Italy, Zoe Cinel is an interdisciplinary artist and curator who is currently based in the Twin Cities. Formally trained as a designer, and visual artist, Zoe’s interdisciplinary practice includes performance, public art, documentary filmmaking, printmaking, installation and new media. She has worked as video designer, performer and costume designer for large and medium scale performance productions. Her work has been screened/exhibited/performed in venues such as the Walker Art Center (MN), the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN), the Southern Theater (MN), the Gibney Dance Choreographic Center (NYC), Festival della Creatività (Italy) and more. She has taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Carleton College, in Northfield, MN. She is an Associate Curator at the Rochester Art Center, MN.

http://www.mnartists.org/zoe-cinel

Preston Drum
Preston Drum

Preston Drum, was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. His paintings, sculptures, videos and interactive installations explore notions of memory and performance through non-linear storytelling. Drum’s work is often site-specific and collaborative in nature, framing the audience as a participant in the art. Drum is also a musician, arts educator and dedicated father.

Aki Shibata
Aki Shibata

Aki Shibata is a behavioral artist from Tokyo, Japan now creating art in St. Paul, Minnesota. She develops intersections for people in public spaces to discover their authentic self and nurture compassion for all. Her work is about finding a sense of belonging.

Peng Wu
Peng Wu

Peng Wu is a design activist and an interdisciplinary artist dedicated to creating socially engaged art in public space. His work combines the power of design thinking with contemporary art strategies to address various urgent social issues including immigration, modern medicine and public health, LGBT rights. He previously worked for Robert Bosch GmbH as a senior graphic designer. In 2019 he worked for the University of Minnesota as an independent researcher, and artist in residency at Weisman Art Museum. He is currently involved in designing the the Second National Symposium of Habitability to investigate what makes a place feel like home - in a different country or on a different planet. He has taught at Minneapolis College of Art and Design MFA program. His collaborative projects have been exhibited in U.S. and internationally including Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, Jingren Paperlogue Beijing.

work website
instagram @pen9wu

Shun Yong
Shun Yong

Shun Yong is from Pahang, Malaysia. He is a photographer and graphic designer. Yong is taking photographs of immigrants with an emphasis on their occupations. He wants to document the personal stories of immigrants and refugees, to honor them and give them visibility within their communities. Yong’s Occupation Series serves as a path to help him achieve a sense of belonging.