FAMILY MURMURINGS: 
ART EXHIBITION

Family Murmurings, is an exhibition created from the close collaboration of Ken Chan as writer, Nancy Liang as artist, and Oliver Clifton as the producer of both a 2D reel and a 3D virtual reality experience. Shown in 2022 at the Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne and the NT Chinese Museum in Darwin the exhibition drew audiences of several thousand people and received positive responses.

The stories I wrote are set principally in Sydney but also in Darwin. They draw on the clashes, conflicts and vicissitudes that beset a particular Chinese family and are a fictional memoir about the adaptation of that family to life in Australia in the 1950s and 60s.

Family Murmurings has four components: a collection of the short stories that inspired the work, 9 artworks that Nancy created based on selected episodes in my stories; the 2D reel that links the artworks; and the 3D VR experience that enables the viewer to be immersed into different scenarios based on the artworks. Looked at together these components provide different perspectives on the narratives that we have sought to present on Australian Chinese life.

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