Roots and Ruins
2-channel digital video, 2025
 
Pricing
Price can be provided upon request.
 
Artwork Statement
My work explores the intertwined themes of destruction and repair across cultures, histories, and materials. I am interested in how the value of artefacts and photographs extends beyond their origins, and how damage, trauma, and scars left by history can be understood not only as loss, but also as imprints of time.
Repairing the past, for me, becomes an act of resistance and reinterpretation. By looking at personal, family, and institutional archives, I consider how histories of damage and restoration continue to shape the present and future. I am particularly drawn to the way memory is preserved, fragmented, and retold through material remains.
The family is the basic unit of society, and collective memory within a family is formed through stories passed across generations. In excavating and restoring relics, I attempt to repair these shared memories and consider how such acts can influence both personal and civic understandings of the past. Within Distributed Worlds, the work reflects on how memory, history, and belonging are dispersed, yet remain deeply interconnected.
 
Artist Bio
Rachel Zhou is a first-generation immigrant from mainland China who has lived in Australia since the age of 18. Her practice explores the interplay between tradition and innovation, past and present, as individuals navigate multiple identities, multiculturalism, and belonging. Drawing on both personal experience and broader migrant histories, her work reflects on how memory and cultural narratives are shaped, carried, and reinterpreted across generations.