[Receipt] begins here

During my stay as an artist in residence at Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei, Taiwan, I developed Bits and Pieces, a mixed-media artwork made from everyday materials such as receipts and paper bags. The texts are written in Thai, English, Chinese, and Japanese. Inspired by Taiwan’s practice of issuing two receipts for a single purchase, I experimented with dual narratives: one imagining how my grandfather might have described himself, and the other reflecting my own identity.

Through fragments of language, memory, and daily life, the work explores the layered and often fragmented nature of personal and ancestral identity. For example, I paired the phrase “เสื่อผืน หมอนใบ" (one pillow and a mat) —a common way to describe poor Chinese migrants who came to Thailand with almost nothing—to represent my grandfather, with the word “ทุนการศึกษา" (scholarship), referencing the opportunity that brought me to Tokyo. Two receipts come from a bank withdrawal. Another features the word “华人” (Chinese people), contrasted with my identity as an overseas Thai on receipts I got from the Southeast Asean supermarket in Taipei. A paper bag from a purchase at Lungshan Temple bears the phrase “surviving belonging,” expressing what I feel both my grandfather and I share as immigrants—despite never having met, as he died two decades before I was born, and I was never close to my father’s side of the family.

I want to make Receipt an ongoing series. I hope to continue collecting and creating these works in Japan and elsewhere. A receipt is something ordinary, often temporary, yet it holds proof of exchange—evidence of presence. I’m interested in what these bits of paper can say about the traces we leave behind.