Marquisha

Marquisha is an East Asian female artist of Chinese descent. She was raised in Singapore, a country in Southeast Asia with various cultural influences from neighbouring countries as well as India and China. Singapore was formerly colonized by the British Empire for 144 years and occupied by the Japanese for 3 years. At home, she receives a Taiwanese upbringing but was educated under the British-influenced education system in school.

Due to the increasing alienation from her cultural origins, Marquisha emphasizes on respecting and referencing her own heritage. She feels a sense of estrangement and displacement due to the disconnection between contemporary popular culture and tradition. In a desperate attempt to reconnect with her roots under the looming omnipresence of global capitalism, she practices reclaiming her culture.

Marquisha finds herself in an uncertain position of cultural dichotomy: nurtured with Asian values at home but educated under Western systems. As such, she pays homage to cultures embedded in her family’s heritage while questioning cultural exploitation. The turbulent political climate of East Asia in the 20th century post-wartime and withdrawal of colonial powers further complicates her lineage. With her hybrid identity, she negotiates the tightrope between Western and Eastern power dynamics cautiously with a critical lens on both shores.

As a victim and perpetrator of global capitalism and cultural imperialism as a consumer of popular culture, Marquisha is resentful towards herself; She is losing her proficiency in Chinese language and losing touch with both Singaporean and Chinese customs and traditions. Terrified by the impending prospects of a culturally homogenous culture and soft western hegemony, she manifests her cerebral conflicts of identity and socio-politics into her studio practice.