From Roots We Carry is a monument and performance ritual that explores the complex intergenerational legacies that live inside us. The installation dances with string and suspension to convey how our memories, dreams, ideas, and traumas intermingle, and are passed through familial bonds as inheritance. Fabric obscures areas of the installation just as our own anxieties and insecurities are often hidden from our conscious minds. Condensed milk cans suspended and stacked represent both the gifts given to us by our ancestors and the heights and weight of those expectations we feel obligated to reach. Floating colorful rattan baskets play with themes of porous and imporous, holding material yet prone to leaks. They are a metaphor for our consciousness, an ever-evolving sieve for our experiences—some things are captured, some things pass through. As visitors traverse the installation and hear soundscapes with voices from the community, they are invited to reflect on all that they are carrying and what they will choose to let go. This work is a collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya and sound-based multimedia artists Dorothy Chan and Lucy Yao of Chromic Duo.

AMANDA PHINGBODHIPAKKIYA is a Brooklyn-based artist, educator, and activist. Her practice centers finding joy and belonging even in the face of grief and injustice, and rallying communities to imagine a shared future we can’t yet see. Her explorations of feminism, science, and community have reclaimed space in museums and galleries, at protests and rallies, on buildings, highway tunnels, subway corridors, as well as on the mainstage of two TED conferences. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, and on the cover of TIME magazine. She has received support for her work from the Sloan Foundation, the Café Royal Cultural Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and Lincoln Center. In 2020-2021, she was artist-in-residence with the NYC Commission on Human Rights. Her work has reached millions around the world and has been acquired into the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of the City of New York and the Library of Congress.

CHROMIC DUO. We are Chromic Duo. We believe that, by slowing down, and looking at the smallest objects of the everyday, that we can uncover truths and reimagine how we connect with each other.

Blending toy piano, electronics, and multimedia into genre-fluid performances and installations, we cultivate spaces to share stories inspired by our experiences as third-culture kids within the Asian-American diaspora.

Recent highlights include partnering with Welcome to Chinatown to feature AAPI business owners and artists in an immersive soundwalk in NYC’s Chinatown, and partnering with the National Gallery in Washington DC, the New York Philharmonic’s Education Program, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Over the next two seasons, we are honored to be Innovators-in-Residence at Purdue University and collaborate with the PU team to develop and launch the StairWELL project, an interactive sculpture installation that explores the intersection of art, tech, and wellness. This project is made possible by the support of Chamber Music America.