drobe

a memory grain line

cut once on fold

stripes the notched sky weary

was it blue

with white stripes or white with blue stripes?

peer into air and you'll see us

wearing identical outfits

twinned like vase, styled in dust

have you ever been lost in a dress? I'm inside

looking for my body

here is a neck, though maybe a cloud

these are for arms, though maybe for dragons

shielded orange // Do Not Cross

I always forget which side I'm facing

watch your feet! changement!

cast my coat off and

dress the dresser

on your floor or your bed

swaddled tender in spring-

clamp jewels and crystal cord

clothe the sunbeam, melting ice;

we're out of the closet

waiting to be worn

by time

---

Curatorial text by Larry Lee:

What and why are these pale blue and white striped sewn fabrics curiously draped over Chinese antique furniture and ceramics huddled in a makeshift pile?

Hai-Wen Lin mined the archives and collections of this museum to pose a similar question and their answer hopefully transforms the very notion of how antiquity and modernity interconnect, overlap, and even juxtapose within a contemporary world that is blurred, neutral, and fluid.

So pardon the pun when I proffer the artist is “redressing” their past through the act of garbing to reconcile perceptions of East versus West by figuratively dressing up these Emperors beyond her new robes in their project somewhere between Daniel Buren who created works intrinsically linked to environment and Christo wrapping things to seem refreshed. Objets d’art previously displayed as artifacts within the museum, set on a pedestal, or behind glass vitrines, frozen in time that Lin now re-activates, if not reanimates.

For these precious treasures, once common, everyday items, albeit of exceptional craftsmanship and quality, used as utilitarian objects then are no longer relegated to history and portrayed as relics but now become refashioned, unwrapped of its mummified past.

---

Works Included:

streetdrobe
2025
framed inkjet print
19.5″ × 23.5″

rubbledrobe
2025
framed inkjet print
19.5″ × 23.5″
acknowledgments: Maia Lee, Remi Okamoto, Clay Houston, Andre McGregor II, David Anthony Scheuerman-Saucedo, McColl Center, Melissa Stutts

Camocdrobe (look 1, look 2, look 3, look 4, look 5)
2025
cotton,
thread, objects from the Chinese American Museum of Chicago's collection, orange flagging tape, crystal beads, enamel on copper
dimensions variable
acknowledgments: Diana Goon, Johnson and Margaret Mao, Sharon L. Ohlson and Lenora L. Phelps, Kitty Trescott, Chinese American Civic Council, Heritage Museum of Asian Art, and anonymous donors

Pattern for Looking; 2/22; cut one; 0.5" SA
2025
paper collage
38″ × 60.5″

This work would not have been possible without the support of the McColl Center and the assistance of Jordan Aldrich, McKenzie Edmund, Renee Holliday, Simon Lane, Jason Lord, Jalen Marlowe, Bethany Salisbury, Nisa Sheikh, Melissa Stutts, Leigh Suggs, and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago: Larry Lee, Riley Ren, Leo Wang.