RMIT School of Art is thrilled to see so many staff, students and alumni featured in the NGV exhibition Melbourne Now.

Today we feature alumnus Olivia Koh.

Alumnus Olivia Koh is an artist working in moving-image production. Drawing on a personal family history of land ownership, migration and extractive agriculture, her work examines the complexities and real challenges of navigating a diasporic identity and history.

The Pioneers, 2021, is informed by research into the artist’s paternal family’s history of immigration. The video presents a fragmented sketch of the family’s movement from China and Taiwan to southern rural Malaysia. Koh’s uncle described the family as ‘The Pioneers’ because they employed agricultural practices on foreign land to generate wealth and prosperity in the early to late twentieth century. Compiled from a geographic distance, the video combines audio excerpts from online interviews with her family members alongside footage collected in Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia over the past five years. The artists’ voice is a constant and hesitant guide throughout the work, asking: What is lost, what is gained and what changes occur to personal migratory history. The moving collage of fragments highlights the sometimes disconnecting and unpredictable experiences of migration, storytelling and memory.

Read the latest RMIT School of Art Melbourne Now newsletter