埃崙詩集 Island Series

In the early 20th Century, Chinese immigrants entering Canada and the U.S. were regularly detained in immigration buildings, where hundreds of poems recording their experience in detention have been found carved on walls, and have since been documented, translated, and published. 

In Marley Kong’s 2026 Island Series, a curated selection of the poems are executed in calligraphy on top of digitally-altered historic photographs of the buildings where they were found. I have Always Yearned to Rach Gold Mountain and The Gentlemen Is Content in Poverty depicts the Immigration Building that once stood in Victoria, B.C., Though Imprisonment Is Bitter shows an aerial view of Ellis Island in New York, and When A Newcomer Arrives in America portrays the Immigration Station on Angel Island (next to the infamous Alcatraz Island) in San Francisco Bay, California.

Kong’s rendering of the poems in calligraphy evokes a sense of historical authenticity; however, this is juxtaposed by the eerie fluorescent colours and the superimposition of the text on the photographs, which transcends the image to the present day. The hand-written calligraphy is further juxtaposed by the laser-engraved text on the acrylic of the frame, which visualizes a barrier and disconnect between the translation and original material. The works not only highlight the past anger, frustration, hopes, and despair of the detainees, but also reflect poem’s relevance to the present.