Yawning at the Fray is an exhibition by Ruby Chang-Jet White and Steven Junil Park that contends with migration, lineage, grief and healing. Drawing on Chinese postpartum customs and her experience of becoming a mum, White’s sculptural installation and meal service is an echo and a calling, to motherhood, ancestry, and the implications of creation. What has been inherited? What will be passed on? Through indigo-dyed textiles, reworked heirloom silver, and objects that transmute Korean folk traditions, Park offers craft and community as modes of reconciliation with family and heritage—alternative legacies that are hopeful for the future. In this exhibition, both Park and White affirm that healing and comfort are possible through deeply connected craft and food-based practices.

Other tongue 餓 ghost kitchen

Yawning at the Fray includes Other tongue 餓 ghost kitchen, an exchange and collaboration by artist Ruby White. Between The Physics Room (Ōtautahi) and Bus Projects (Naarm), White has developed this takeaway food service, offering nourishing meals that honour birthing, menstruating bodies and bring comfort to those looking for some inner healing.

Preorders are now open until Friday 25 October!

Ruby Chang-Jet White is a Chinese-Malaysian Hakka and Pākehā artist who works predominantly with food and ceramics. Using inherited memory, craft and tacit knowledge, to reflect on and explore histories, intimacy and bridging worlds. More recently she has become more focused on how food can be used intentionally to cultivate spiritual and bodily empathy. She became a mother last July.

Steven Junil Park is a Korean-born multi-disciplinary artist based in Ōtautahi. His practice explores the potential of the handmade to express identity and understand the human experience, producing clothing, textiles and other functional and craft-based objects.

Yawning at the Fray and Other tongue 餓 ghost kitchen have been developed in collaboration with Bus Projects (Naarm).