From Across the Sea: Conversation with Megan Li
Megan is a Chinese-born, creatively-minded woman. We have connected through working collaboratively on artistic projects together. We met up in a cafe recently to enjoy some good food and engage in reflective conversation about why we do what we do.
A: So, what kind of art do you like making?
M: To be honest I’ve never really considered myself as an “artist”, because it’s rather a big word in Chinese. To be an “artist” is a narrower thing in China, while I have a feeling that it is a word that is more broadly used here. So people here may consider me, somehow as an “artist”, but usually I wouldn’t…
A: Call yourself that?
M: (laughing) Yeah. I like photography, I like creating images, I like documenting moments. I think I’m still exploring - I feel like there is creativity or something in me that I want to express, but I’m still trying to find a form. I think at the moment I’m quite into photography, videos and visual things.
A: It’s interesting that you talk about the difference in Australian culture where people like to use the word “artist” fairly loosely, whereas in China is serious label.
M: Yeah, I feel you really have to be quite talented. How I imagine an “artist” to be is either someone who is quite talented and very good at what they do, or someone who has very extreme life experience which makes them think in a unique way. They create things that in most cases, happy people probably wouldn’t be able to.
A: That might be understood as the cliche of the “mad artist”, is that what you mean?
M: (laughing) Yeah.
A: So what does it feel like then as a young Chinese person living in Melbourne trying on this idea of making art and being a bit of an “artist” considering the context you’ve come from?
M: It’s a hard one. In China I wouldn’t necessarily feel I’m an “artist”, but I feel different. I don’t want to say “special”, but just different. The way I think, what I like to do, my lifestyle. People will think I’m an “arty” person. Here in Melbourne, it’s more free, it’s more tolerant. I definitely feel way less restricted.
A: As to the kind of art you can make?
M: I meant what I do and in general. Yeah. But as to the things that I make - it’s maybe the opposite. I feel my creativity comes from my background and my upbringing which was more restricted and harder.
A: So you feel like your restricted background is present in your art, but now you’re here you have more permission to explore that?
M: Yes. I am often more inspired by my life experiences in China. Usually photographers will use other photos to create a mood board before shooting - it's great, I do it too, but I get inspired more from my experiences growing up and my hometown. I think because it was a difficult upbringing… It might sound strange but I get more inspired when I'm unhappy, or not in an ideal environment… So sometimes I find it hard to get inspired by the society here or artists around me. Perhaps because it’s quite relaxed and happy here? I always try to find my inspirations from back home.
A: I think it’s a really interesting way of identifying inspiration as coming from pain or suffering which many artists would agree with. It’s something I feel strongly about. My childhood was somewhat strange and there was a lot of suffering involved and that has definitely made me much more expressive and taught me to challenge my own thought processes in a way that growing up in a nice Australian middle-class family would not have done (laughing).
M: (nodding) Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A: In my experience, when you feel like an outsider it can be a wonderful… it can give a kind of safety around trying to work things out in a way. When you blend in you’re fitting in with the crowd a lot and that’s what we can get consumed with, when we do fit in. But when we know we are already on the outside it triggers a lot of thought.
M: (nodding) Yeah.
A: So it must have been interesting for you to grow up in China with certain elements of suffering or problems or tensions perhaps, and knowing that you’re quite creative. If you can remember, what was one of your first memories of being creative?
M: My creativity comes from my curiosity. I’m very, very curious, mostly about the minorities and what they think. Most people have bias and like to assume things. But I always try to understand them. But anyway, that’s not very relevant. When I was a kid our teacher asked us to make a board at the end of the semester and we could decorate our board however we wanted. We would gather all our writing from the semester and pick the ones we liked and write it nicely- like graphic designing a board of the work we had done. I really enjoyed that. It was something different to just studying. That’s when I felt I could be free. Draw however I want. The whole concept of designing a board was very fresh and exciting for me. The Chinese education system, especially when I was a kid, was not very creatively driven. So something, anything that gave us freedom excited me.
A: Sort of creative problem solving, but you’re not told how to do it, so you have to start using that curiosity and start thinking “how do I want this to be?"
M: Yeah.
A: Do you remember the first feelings you had?
M: It was very satisfying. Happy and excited. I think I was quite proud of what I did. It was pretty, it was my own. It was different from the daily things we do.
A: Were your parents supportive of you pursuing a more creative approach to work?
M: I would say yes. I’m from a small town and my parents are still quite traditional, just like everyone else there. But I know a lot of my friends' parents would be so angry and wouldn’t allow them to do what I do now- even just to live in another country. Of course my parents miss me a lot and sometimes worry about me - I’m their only child, and they want me to be by their side, but they also understand that I’m an individual and I can make my own choices.
A: They sound progressive maybe, for Chinese parents.
M: Yeah especially my mum. I think I get my curiosity from my mum. She is from a small town and she grew up poor, so she didn’t have much opportunity to express herself. When she visited me here she was so happy, even though she can’t speak the language she wants to explore and always smiles at people. She's always been understanding and respectful of my decisions and lifestyle.
A: So I’m wondering, do you think there’s a space in Chinese culture to be curious?
M: Hmm I think definitely much less than here. People can be a bit judgemental of other people’s lifestyle wherever you are. It’s almost human nature to be judgemental. It’s still judgemental here but in a more diverse way. In China most people have similar values- so I always get the same comments, judgements or responses from people.
When I was little, I always felt different but I didn’t know what it was. Learning English was a huge breakthrough and change in my life- whilst everyone else treated learning English as a serious subject like math, I thought it was really interesting and exciting, because when you learn a language you learn the way people think too. The sentence structures in English are so different to Chinese. So I instantly felt there were different ways of thinking things. I started watching movies and listening to music and I was like “Oh my God it’s so different”. I realised what I had been taught wasn’t necessarily right… This really changed me, and I became very curious about the language and the culture, wondering what people on the other side of the world were doing. Growing up people have always said I was “different”, I don’t know if it’s a compliment or not. I think I was quite proud that I was different but people liked to label me. So, I think there’s definitely less space, but I guess that actually encouraged me to be more different.
A: What made you more different?
M: People being not so tolerant of different ideas. It’s like your parents telling you to do one thing, but you want to do the opposite.
A: That must have been difficult to grown up in China with that sort of temperament (laughs).
M: Yeah, yeah (Laughs).
A: So you have modelled, take photos and like to think about things. Why do you think you explore all these artistic pursuits?
M: I think it just makes me more content. And these are just the things that I want to do.
A: Not to pry too deeply, but we all go through difficult times and challenges, I’m sure you’ve been faced some experiences of feeling like an outsider at times. How has creative pursuits influenced the way you have handled the challenges you’ve had to face?
M: (Long pause) It’s a hard one.
(Another long pause)
A: It’s often very hard to understand why we do what we do. I was a really creative child and I always felt very different and I would come out with different things to other kids and was always confused as to why people were doing what they were doing. I was questioning why why why? And I was often confused. (Laughs). Looking back on those years, I made a lot of art and maybe it was a way of helping myself connect to the non-linear thought processes that were going on and helping me to process information. But it was confusing to me as a child. So I would make art but I didn’t know why I was except it made me feel better. When you said it makes you feel content, well that’s what it did for me. I just felt better.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(Long pause)
A: Looking back I think I was trying to understand things about the world and I couldn’t get there through rational thought all the time. And when I engaged in art making it gave me a bit of time out, intellectually. And helped me just play and try things out and helped me to build confidence in my own style, my own voice and gave me a way of interpreting and expressing something. Adults would ask me “where did you copy that from?” And I would get very confused. I would say “I’m not copying something, I’m drawing something!” And adults would get very curious about what I was doing and sometimes that put a lot of pressure and judgement of me. But I kept doing it because it gave me a sense of contentment. Part of it was stress relief, but another part of it was leaning into learning to trust my own voice and leaning into my own personal interpretation of experience. Does sit that true?
M: Yeah, yeah.
A: It can be a very hard thing to define because it’s a felt thing, a sensory thing, which seems an illegitimate way to structure your time to a lot of adults. (Laughs). I mean, why do something you can’t really understand?
M: Yeah. Hmmmm. (Long pause) Of course I feel like an outsider here. Especially hanging out with all Australians.
A: They are everywhere. (Laughs)
M: Yeah I know. (Laughs) Western culture is more open and there is lots of blah blah blah and random talking. Culture-wise and personality-wise I’m not good at it, especially in big groups. Sometimes I don’t understand the humour, and sometimes I don’t understand what they are talking about because I can’t relate to their background. But when I listen to them I think about my childhood, and that’s when I get inspired by. Although I do get most of my inspirations from my upbringing and my background- living in a different country has definitely allowed that to happen (or contribute to that), for I understand my culture better when I’m in a different one. I often feel like an in-betweener (rather than an outsider), the uneasy feeling of not belonging anywhere is sometimes lonely but also quite inspiring.
A: So it sounds to me like your curiosity to understand other people has lead you to some experiences that have (maybe) been uncomfortable but ultimately that’s helped you understand your culture and history and why you are the way you are.
M: Mmm mmmm…
A: Which is amazing. Because a lot of people struggle to make themselves uncomfortable in the beginning. I don’t think many people get to experience that level of contrast because you have to step out of what you already know and into the unknown to get that.
M: Yeah, yeah definitely. I think definitely- for most people.
A: Are you glad you came to Australia?
M: Yeah I think so. The other day I was talking to a friend… sorry this is not relevant. Obviously, Melbourne would be considered a very diverse city. You have so many people from all over the world- so many cultures, language, lifestyle. In comparison, in China, most people are Chinese. So from appearance it doesn’t seem diverse. But for me, I see huge diversity in lifestyles of different classes. I’m sure it happens here, it happens everywhere, but in China it’s quite extreme.
A: The poverty?
M: Yeah, the poor people will struggle so much to eat and make a few dollars and just support their families. The poor people’s lives are so different. I don’t know if it’s good to say that, but for me it’s so inspiring and refreshing, it really hits and inspires me. I think I sometimes feel too much for people, perhaps they don’t feel as bad as I feel for them!
A: I think in English we call that “compassion”. Sometimes I think a flip side of the compassion can be a kind of gratitude for the good things in life. I feel like in Melbourne there’s a very high standard of living and because of that there’s less gratitude and then maybe because of that there’s less available compassion toward some suffering because we don’t see that much of it here. At least everyone has the opportunity to have education, healthcare, express themselves within certain limits.
M: Yeah.
A: Challenge and learning how to survive is a great teacher. And in my experience, it is a beautiful juxtaposition against the “luxury” and “privilege” to be able to create art and express those struggles. And it goes back to what we were saying about a lot of art comes out of the suffering. What seems to be a privileged thing to do often comes out of an intense struggle and a curiosity around that struggle and what it (suffering) means.
What is the most important lesson art has taught you?
M: (long pause) I don’t know. How would you answer?
A: Yeah it’s a big question isn’t it? (Laughs)
For me, making art is in everything. It’s in making a meal, it’s in eating a meal. I get really into thinking about contrasts and balance. In clothing and dressing I like to play with a bit of a masculine feeling and a bit of a feminine feeling and how those two inter-play. And I think growing up as a child making a lot of art… And people would look at my art and make judgements but I knew those judgements didn’t mean anything because they didn’t know why I’d done what I’d done. So it gave me a private space, a bit of a boundary, where I could deflect judgement, because I knew what I was “just art” and they were just in interpretation.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A: But now, obviously I studied art therapy for 4 years and I’ve made a lot of art since. As I’ve gotten older my art has become much more about trusting an abstract felt sense that I don’t understand. Trusting a feeling that is with me that I can’t articulate with words. It’s just too far away from me to be able to reach out and touch it with words so I start to make art. I think my art, now, is a kind of celebration of life. A celebration of all the elements that can be juxtaposed together to create my experience. And also a trying to mentally touch something, something that is outside of my mental reach. So (the feelings) come out onto the art until I find some kind of completion pleasure or satisfaction that comes… And even then I won’t really understand what I’ve done. I look back on a lot of my collages and it makes me laugh. I’m like “what was that all about?”. I’m still really quite lost when it comes to some of the stuff that I make. I look on a lot of the stuff I’ve made over the years and there’s something about the unarticulated unknown that I’m trying to kind of put my finger on… I tend to photograph the sky. And the sky, to me, is symbolic of the mental plane. So I take pictures of the clouds and sky and it’s kind of a cliche, but I don’t really care (laughs)
M: (Laughs)
A: And I’ve noticed I often include elements of the sky and things that are man-made. And I wonder if I’m trying to work something out about the relationship between the great unknown and everything that we understand about humans have made- everything we understand about human nature, so like street lights and buildings. It’s a kind of mix of “here we are on planet earth” with all the things we know like lights and trees and these things are banal and then there’s the great expanse, the sky. And I feel (for me) that making art is about the tension between these two things. It’s what we know and then there’s everything else that we don’t know and can never know. It’s the great unknown. We are just a little planet floating in a… cosmic body. And here we are with our pavements and buildings, just going about our everyday and yeah. Maybe that’s something I’m sitting with for a while. There’s the everyday and then there’s everything else… Who knows!
M: Yeah.
A: But also I think a lot of my art making just comes from a really simple place. It’s stress relieving and it feels good.
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A: And maybe why it feels good is part of the mystery.
(Pause)
Do you think that, for you, making art has been helpful with mental health?
M: I think yeah, definitely. Making art and being creative has allowed me to express subtle things which can be hard through other forms. And the process itself really varies from time to time, sometimes it brings me satisfaction, sometimes pride, sometimes relief, sometimes doubt and stress. Although I rarely think deeply about what being creative has changed/affected me, I think it’s just part of who I am, and a lot of the time I do it simply because it’s what my heart tells me to do. Or even me photographing myself… It’s quite therapeutic.
A: Yeah. Like a self portrait.
M: Yeah. But when I shoot with other people it becomes a stressful thing for me.
A: Interesting.
M: Yeah! So I’m trying to make that process more “me” because a lot of the time I feel pressured. When I’m photographing other people for a certain purpose or if there’s a team of people expecting me to… you know.
A: It sounds like there’s a little element of suffering there, in that process.
M: Yeah!
A: So maybe something beautiful and artistic will come out of that. Maybe there’s something you’re willing to work with and lean into. A creative problem solving, even though there’s discomfort.
M: Yeah. I think that’s good. It's good to be uncomfortable.
A: Yeah me too.
Well… Thank you for taking the time to have this conversation with me.
M: Thank you.
Megan’s work on instagram: @megtingting_ and @megan_lyt