Jacky Cheng was born in Malaysia of Chinese heritage, and now resides in Yawuru Country, Rubibi/Broome. Deeply rooted in her own bi-cultural experience, her focus is fundamentally about identity and awareness through cultural activities, nostalgia, and inter generational relationships. She correlates and weave narratives from her native experiences whilst mapping the esoteric and social constructs of her current environment, and collective surroundings.
Storytelling is the essence of meaning-making. Conversations surrounding cultural celebrations, taboos and protocols are pertinent to Cheng’s childhood, as ideals of benevolence and loyalty reflect the core objectives of intergenerational relationships through acts of filial piety. As a person of colour in a transcultural environment, her awareness is amplified through a diasporic lens.
Influenced by this oscillation between two cultures, her work bases itself in the subject of questioning perceptions of identity through a reflection on personal and shared experiences, the mobility of communities, local and global issues and at the same time taking the liberty to interrogate notions of ‘place and identity’, ’home’, ‘belonging’ and ‘in-between’ territories, whilst nurturing her own identity and keeping her grandmother’s stories and teachings alive. She states, ‘I make to remember’.
