ac·cu·mu·la·tions

Through collected lists, prose, and archival and family photographs, Clare Yow reflects on her inheritance of Chinese-Canadian history marred by racist policies, caregiving during a pandemic and a genocide, and how language is learned and develops meaning. The book’s double-fold cover memorializes her ancestors and photographer Lillian Ho Wong (born in 1895 in Vancouver’s Chinatown). Also included is a folded poster with layered text derived directly from the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act.

The poetic text and images in ac-cu-mu-la-tions and the poster (Prohibited Classes Palimsest) are part of Yow’s larger research-base project titled, The sun will always set. Of that project, Clare Yow writes,

“My project’s title is a subversion of the imperialist idea that the British Empire and other ancient Empires held—that ‘the sun will never set’ on their territories; that it would always shine on at least one part of their conquered lands. Stating that the sun will inevitably set and that we cannot pretend or control it otherwise, draws on my family’s practice of Zen Buddhism, its value of impermanence, and how we confront suffering. Without mud, there can be no lotus.☀”