Painted along an alleyway in Sydney’s Chinatown district, Jason Wing’s mural ‘In Between Two Worlds’ is a dynamic expression of his bi-cultural identity, weaving together elements of his Aboriginal and Chinese heritage.
“Matrilineal is the Aboriginal side and paternal is the Cantonese side, and when I was young, there was a beautiful crossover,” Jason Wing said.
“I’m a descendant of the Biripi mob.
“On my father's side, I have Cantonese Heritage from Guangdong Province, mainland China, just off Hong Kong.
“I like to refer to myself as, I'm 100% Chinese, 100% Aboriginal, 100% Australian. That's how I like to think of my cultures. And I always see with those three lenses.”
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Jason's work, like this one in Sydney's Chinatown, often references significant moments from his life.
The mural further references both Aboriginal and Chinese motifs through an ode to the elements of wind, water, fire and earth, Wing drawing his inspiration from a profound moment overseas.
“I was in a sacred mountain in China, and we were so high up that a cloud went through my body, and that was indescribable,” he said.
“I wanted to bring that essence back to a city environment … and to transform urban concrete jungles.
“How do I turn this into an experiential journey of walking in between worlds, like we do every day? We're Aboriginal people. We walk in this colonial world, but we see red everywhere.”
‘Reclaiming space’ to encourage truth-telling
The deep influence of culture is present in his art practice, viewing the knowledge and information captured in the pigment of his mural work as being akin to cave paintings which are “social and historical documents to educate intergenerational people.”
“My partner Maddison Wing and myself, we feel that the mural work is just a contemporary cave painting, that’s the way we like to view it,” Wing said.
“We reference traditional cave painting techniques like the chewing of ochre and splatter.
“The Chinese paper cuts actually just act as a stencil, and the ochre splatter creates the image, so I was able to combine two really core elements really early.”
Traditional techniques form an important basis for Jason's work.
“The dragon is the symbol of the emperor, the most fierce, strongest, most powerful, spiritual, creative animal, which we believe existed in a different form,” Wing said.
“The serpent, for me, represents strength, adaptation, overcoming all obstacles and boundaries with limitations.
“The Rainbow Serpent created our land, sea, its fertility, female energy, it created everything.”
While Wing’s mural references the Aboriginal flag in its foundational design, it also brings Chinese connections and contact with First Nations people into the foreground; which records show, far precede the Australian gold rush of the 1800s.
“The gold sun also represents the people. It also represents the 1850s, the Australian gold rush with the immigration of Han Chinese,” Wing said.
“When I say immigration, I mean human trafficked one-way - often the Chinese men were never allowed to return home.”
The mural also aims to highlight some similarities Wing has experienced and witnessed through his Chinese and Aboriginal identity, in a cultural context as well as through a historic lens of post-colonial to present-day Australia.
“We're actually what we would call same, same, different,” he said.
“Culturally, [both have] a matrilineal framework, whether that was private, but we all knew the women ruled, and that was that.
“The spirituality, creation stories, the racism experienced in Australia … similarities in treatment.”
For Gibbs, the process of painting the mural brought with it a sense of fulfilment.
“I felt proud the whole time painting it because there were so many different people from different communities coming up to us and saying, ‘I understand this story, I see it,” she said.
The power of sparking conversations through public art is another driver behind the duo’s creative process.
“253 years of colonisation is too much and has been at the detriment of everybody in this country,” Gibbs said.
“I think truth telling and reclaiming space is the only way to start fresh and to move forward.”
Sparking important conversations around topics like truth telling is the one of the couple's central artistic intentions.
“I only really want them to ask the question, ‘why that imagery, or why those colours, or why that combination?’” Wing said.
“For me, a visual Aboriginal presence and a visual Chinese presence together is enough because there’s an extreme lack of, or any cultural presence in Australia, specifically Aboriginal.
“Murals are a great antidote to that, reclaiming that visual space that everything from us was taken. This is one way to sort of say, we're still here, we're still fighting.”
The year of the wood snake
The year of the wood snake is said to bring in a year of growth and prosperity, and for Wing, this next celestial shift is especially significant.
“I'm born in the Chinese year of the snake, so I'm a fire snake in [the] Chinese zodiac,” he said.
“I don’t know what's in store, but I know it's mega, it's life changing.
“We have to be accountable for our 12 year cycle … we have to get rid of the things that no longer serve us and to be our full potential, and so we have this opportunity that's in the forefront of our mind.”
The lunar calendar adopts a 12-year cycle with a different animal and its associated element representing each year.
“I celebrate Lunar New Year every year. It's always been a big part of our family - the dragon dances, the firecrackers,” Wing said.
“There's nothing better than seeing your culture celebrated.”
