INTRODUCTION

My name is Lie Fhung - an artist/designer born and grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia who has been living in Hong Kong since 2001. Back in 2005, after my successful solo exhibition 'flight' in Jakarta, the seeds of my next art project 'To Breed Or Not To Breed' were born. After some experimentations, a long hiatus and further contemplation, I am finally ready to continue working on it. I am employing different mediums for this work - mediums that I have always loved: paints, canvas, paper, found-objects and digital imaging.

As the title suggests, my art project is about whether or not to have children; to procreate. I have been struggling with this question for the past few years - it is such a tough choice to make. A decision to conceive a baby will bring me (and my husband) major, irreversible changes in our lives. There are particular complications in our situation that might make having children a lot more risky for us. Choosing to not having children, to not change the way things are now seems so safe: why rock the boat? And yet... there is this nagging yearning to have children; to brave the risks and the changes it will bring - come what may.

Looking around me, it seems that most women eventually would want to have children. For a lot of them it was never a question - it was just a matter of course. For some, it was a choice that they made. I know more women who would so readily say yes to have children than otherwise. I know a lot of women who think that women should, by default, have children - to not have children is not an option.

The exploration for this project started in mid 2005 with two artist books, each is an edition of one. Around that time I was introduced to scrapbooking and the influence is evident there. Working on these artist books have encouraged me further to make use of craft materials and technique in my art.

In 2007, I released a collection of digital scrapbooking kits called "The Great Expectations" in which I made use of my art for my craft/design work. The release of this collection marked my come back to continue working on this project after almost 2 years hiatus. A Questionnaire was released along with the collection to gather more insight about this dilemma among women (and men too, although admittedly there were only a few of them participated) of various age, background, ethnicity and nationality. Although the Questionnaire period has now been closed, anyone is welcome to respond to it here.

In 2008, thanks to the Freeman Fellowship awarded to me by Vermont Studio Center which gave me an 8-week Artist Residency, I was able to make substantial progress. The experience I gained through the residency has also been influential upon my return to continue working on this project. In the next pages, you can see the works done so far. They are listed in chronological order, with the newest on the top most. New works will be posted as they are ready.

Thank you very much for your interest in my work. See the works in progress here.