Today we’d like to introduce you to Ger Xiong.
Ger, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My family immigrated to the US as Hmong refugees of the Vietnam War and resided in Wisconsin since our arrival in 1993. I was born in Thailand but was under a year old before we came to the US. We came to the US with a single mother who had to raise seven and then eight of us in an unknown space. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and school in central Wisconsin. While growing up, I always knew I wanted to be an artist, whatever that meant during my childhood. I was interested in the arts at a very young age, took a lot of art classes (2-D and 3-D) during high school and continued to pursue fine arts in higher education. A lot of my upbringing I think stems from my childhood, which revolves around identity, culture, and history. They all relate to concepts and ideas of loss, mourning, erasure, amongst other topics that affect identity. I realized when I began to look for schools in higher ed, I wanted to pursue the arts. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in metals and jewelry at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and my Master of Fine Arts at New Mexico State University.
Growing up, I felt an unbalancing of my Hmong and American identity, never really being able to “fit” into either space, always transitioning and negotiating my identities. I questioned, “what does it mean to be Hmong. What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be Hmong American?” I’m not sure if I have an answer to what these mean to me today but it’s a continuous pick and choose, code switching, learning, unlearning, relearning about culture and history.
I had a lot of questions and curiosities about my Hmong culture and history. I began to explore and research more into my Hmong history and initially found metals and jewelry as a form to tell my story and document our narratives. I felt connected to the materials and process as it was similar to what Hmong makers made and continue to make within our community. Metals and jewelry as well as textiles became a form for me to learn more about my Hmong history and culture and as a way to explore the intersections of my identities.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road had a lot of ups and downs. Though I come from a family of makers, some of the struggles included not having a lot of artists who looked like me to look up to during my time in college. There weren’t a lot of Hmong students studying fine arts at the University I was at but I was very fortunate to have a great mentor, Teresa Faris, who continued to support, yet challenged my work and concepts. When you work within the arts and don’t see a lot of resemblance to those who look like you within the field, it’s a continuous battle of getting support or trying to get yourself into the door within predominantly white spaces. One of the reasons I moved to Minnesota was to find closer connections to other Hmong artists and makers and join in on the discussions of the questions I had growing up, questioning, “how are other Hmong artists navigating their identity through the arts”.
There was also a lot of family pressure to study and pursue an education that was more prestigious such as becoming a doctor, lawyer, careers that had more opportunities to gain financial support for the future. I’m not sure if my family really knows what I do but I tell them I make art and show them at galleries and museums and sometimes sell some smaller work. It has definitely helped me better communicate my thoughts and be more patient with my mother and other family members who grew up during our time in the refugee camps and pre-Vietnam War.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a Hmong American visual artist and maker. My work looks at the navigation and negotiation of cultural identity through the lens of assimilation, migration, and colonization, reflecting loss, commodification, and the resilience of being Hmong. Jewelry, adornment, objects, and textiles are used as a tool of storytelling and documenting our history and culture throughout our migration. I utilize colors, patterns, symbols, and visual narratives in different ways to represent my cultural identity.
My current work explores disrupting dominant spaces through materialities such as replicated French Indochina coins and American products such as Coca-Cola cans. The materials are cut apart, drilled into, and embroidered with fluorescent colors that are representative of my Hmong identity. I am interested in how we reclaim identity throughout our history within dominant spaces. Historically, Hmong silversmiths were known to melt down French Indochina coins which were silver when it was in circulation. They would melt down the currency and repurpose that metal into our jewelry. I find that disruption of power fascinating and I use that same process with the replicated coins and other materials within my current work.
I am most proud of having been able to go through the rigors of higher education earning my Bachelor’s and Master’s. I didn’t think that would ever happen. I grew up with a single mother who worked endlessly to house and feed her eight children in the states when we first moved here. My father passed away a month before I was born while we were living in the refugee camps in Thailand. Going through those rigors has helped shape a lot of my work because I was fortunate to meet a lot of different artists and makers and met a lot of great mentors who have continued to inspire and support my work. I am also proud of being awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in my later year. Doing research, going back to learn from master Hmong silversmith and other makers in Thailand was always a dream of mine and that came true in 2019. I was able to work alongside a couple of Hmong silversmiths as well as learn from other Hmong makers, sellers, and scholars during my time there. I never had an attachment to Thailand because I grew up in the US but knew that there was so much history there and that my family was once living within that land for years after the Vietnam War. Seeing and communicating with other Hmong folks in Thailand was such an eye-opening and rewarding experience and I hope to continue that research one day, not just in Thailand but within other countries from our diaspora.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Mentorship is so important and I am so glad to be able to have found so many within my field of work. Attending university for my degrees has helped me a lot. The space that you’re in challenges your work and the Professors are there to critically engage and challenge your ideas, concepts while giving you support and advice in whichever field you’re in. You are also in a space where other students are in familiar situations as you, going through the same rigor and having that cohort of colleagues continues to help me because you can lean on each other when you need support during and after graduating.
Outside of school, I have reached out to other artists through social media, such as Hmong artists, that are working with similar concepts and ideas. I have learned quite a lot on how they have/are navigating their career within the arts and it has been helpful. It really helps as a person of color to have someone to talk to about how they have navigated their art career within predominantly white spaces such as galleries and museums.
Contact Info:
- Website: gerxiong.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gerxiong55/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ger.xiong.37
