Interview #149 — Roshelle Fong
by Kim Lam
Roshelle Fong is a multidisciplinary artist living and working on Wurundjeri Country, who strives to create immersive experiences that inspire collective reflection and action.
Roshelle spoke to Kim Lam about poetry competitions, provoking audiences and doing clay poos.
Times have been… interesting lately. How have the various crises of 2020 affected your current state of being?
A lot of my passion for creating stuff and my arts practice has always been about figuring out who I am and questioning my identity, my right to speak and assumptions made about me. That’s usually where the juicy, fiery stuff comes from. So at the start of lockdown, with our purpose and identities thrown up in the air, I really clung to art-making as a distraction, somewhere to channel my nervous energy and get through the days. I created ‘Thirsty!’, an interactive livestreamed detective theatre show for Griffin Theatre and Google Creative Lab, among other things. But then I got into a dangerous pattern where, in the downtime between creating stuff, I’d be like… so lost and unsure of myself. And the antidote to that has been trying to meditate more, making little gifts for people and getting my head outta my butt!
2020 has been another wake-up call and call-to-arms for more direct racial justice action, and being part of Democracy in Colour’s Create Change Fellowship has been a big part of this journey for me. I need to better understand and take responsibility for my little dent in history… give back as much as I’ve taken, growing up privileged, here, on Stolen Land. And as for art stuff, I’m on a path of detaching my ego and abstract notions of success/failure from my arts practice. It’ll be an ongoing process but I’m discovering more connected ways to work with and learn from others.
A current collaboration I’m super excited about is Zoophobia, an anti-racism card game I’m co-creating with artist Ngioka Bunda-Heath, racial justice educator Elsa Tuet-Rosenberg, and programmers Minh Bui and Cam Melville and play-tester Daniel Last. Initially the game was called ‘Pandamonium’ and focused on COVID-19 viral profiling and racism against ‘people of Asian appearance’. Now it has a broader scope, and our key message is that by recognising our own privileges and when to give them away, we’ll have more open and honest relationships with each other, to heal and dismantle racist systems together. The process of creating this work has been really nourishing and we can’t wait to share our game with the world!
What was it like for you as a child growing up in Australia?
I was born in Hong Kong and came to Australia when I was two-and-a-half. Dad was what’s commonly called an 'astronaut dad’—he worked overseas and came back a few times every year. I used to think ‘Why can't we all just stay together? Why does this need to happen?’ and it took a while to fully appreciate why it was done and that it wasn't done lightly. I have a lot of respect for my parents for making it work. I was a pretty happy, shrill, naughty, silly kid… I was comfortable playing by myself for hours on end too, which is a trait I wouldn’t mind re-developing. Sometimes I put on classical music or an old audiobook to try and conjure up the imaginative freedom I had in childhood, which the adulting process has whittled away somewhat.
You’ve had a really colourful, multidisciplinary trajectory to date. Have you always wanted to be a storyteller?
I started performing in Chinese poetry competitions when I was around five-years-old. That planted the seed of me being… let’s say ‘extra’. Stepping into different characters, running amok on stage. I’ve always loved performing.
The competitions were hilarious, you'd go to some town hall, coached by your parents, and recite Chinese poems from memory. And you'd get your name printed in the local Chinese newspaper if you got a medal. So for better or worse, I grew a taste for the kudos that came with delivering a good performance. Kudos not only for us kids, but for our families too.
In high school I loved multimedia and filmmaking. One of my first short films was about my Grandpa who was a painter. He left his family in Vietnam when he was thirteen to go to Hong Kong, alone. He started out doing sketches of people on the street, and eventually went on to make a living out of art. He painted giant movie posters on the sides of buildings with massive strips of leather, and designed moon cake boxes among other stuff. It was so cool to have my family act in that short, and when we screened it at a school festival a few of them cried. That was a pivotal moment for me—seeing the power of storytelling to hold a mirror up to ourselves, our struggles and our achievements, and in doing so, creating moments of reflection and connection.
In terms of how you use form and style, it's usually participatory, and often improvisational. In your ECL bio, you mention that you enjoy 'exploring the discomforts of human truth searching'. How did this all come together to form the unique style you now call your own?
I’ve had a track record of bringing audiences along my uncomfortable rides of identity-seeking, identity-making. For the longest time I found it hard to write roles for myself where I was strong, or I where was the hero, and not some clueless, oppressed, reactionary side-character… even though I was the only one in the scene. I’d often use a text-to-speech pre-record of a male, British voice representing the system, or the patriarchy, and my on-stage persona would start out bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and sassy but almost certainly have the life sucked out of her by the voice-over antagonist. And sometimes the audience would be thrust into the role of the antagonist too, or become a microcosmic metaphor for everything wrong with the status quo. I decided I didn’t want to keep doing this. There are many ways to prove a point, and these days, as an audience member I want to be excited into reflection and action.
Toni Cade Bambara says ‘The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible’. So I’m learning to love my characters more, and love my audiences more. I want them to remember a work because they felt uplifted and could go home and do something simple, something constructive to overcome these awful systems we're talking about.
As for the participatory stuff, my interest in immersive theatre and de-stigmatising mental health and social isolation came together in ‘nomnomnom’ my site-specific food delivery show that premiered at Melbourne Fringe 2018. I know a few older migrant women who have felt really disconnected from society, especially after losing a partner, felt that death would be the best option for them. At the heart of it, the show was about the power of intergenerational, intercultural connections between lonely strangers. That and creating an interactive experience where audience members felt compelled to say or do something kind in the middle of the show, which took place on suburban streets and in a real house. I wanted people to reimagine their own neighbourhoods, trams, homes, workplaces as stages ripe for performances of compassion, because all of life’s a stage right?! And none of it would’ve been remotely possible without the incredible improv skills of the actors I’ve worked with. The show’s been staged twice in Melbourne, in Sydney, in Iceland and Shanghai, each time with different actors. And everyone who’s been in the show has really understood that it only works if they can gain every single audience member’s trust, enough for them to feel safe and confident enough to acknowledge and enact their agency within the show.
I’m on a path of detaching my ego and abstract notions of success/failure from my arts practice. It’ll be an ongoing process but I’m already discovering much more nourishing ways to collaborate and learn from others.
You love craft—can you tell me more about that? And what do you think about the delineation between art and craft (a patronising question for the latter!)?
Well my mum has done every craft that you can imagine. So growing up there was always something being dabbled in. And I've been using it more as a meditative tool. Or if I've got a big idea and I want to create an epic show out of it, but I'm lacking the time or resources for it, then trying to condense a big budget idea into a poem, a little clay sculpture or something tangible and tactile—I've found that really nice. It calms me and is great reassurance that there are many ways to bring a brainchild to life. Like, if I want to do a show about a poo revolution with sewage pipe car chases and the waterworks, well, just making a clay turd is much more immediately achievable and comforting in itself! And back to your art vs craft question, I’ve definitely gone back and appreciated the ‘crafts’ my Mum has made as being art. No doubt about it.
It's like your surplus creativity!
Yes! And I can be really proud of it but no one has to judge it and that's nice. There's no pressure for me in that realm. And because I'm not a professional visual artist or sculptor, when I'm making these craft items, I ‘fail’ a lot, and I think that’s really important. To have a sandpit where you can just mess stuff up and feel okay about that and normalise that.
I used to have this little exercise called ‘being okay with not being everyone's cup of tea'…in other words, rehearsing that muscle of not feeling like the world is going to end if you're not right for someone or something. And I feel that way about craft. It's about rehearsing getting stuff ‘wrong’ and just appreciating the process, the beauty of trying.
Is there anything you'd like to see change in the performing arts industry?
More accessibility and diversity, in the broadest sense. I am hugely privileged to be art-making more-or-less full-time, and I do this uneasily knowing there are so many voices that urgently need to be heard but aren’t or can’t because we live in unfair systems built on discrimination and deeply rooted unconscious biases. I can and must do more. And that applies industry-wise too.
As far as performing arts ‘identities’ go I've always been a bit of a floater: trans-media, multi-disciplinary. I feel like more and more, different industries (performing arts, film/TV, digital arts, gaming, XR) are recognising that they can look outside of themselves to cross-pollinate, to gain and give inspiration that will create work akin to amalgamated beasts hungry to reach new audiences, and transcend their perceived limitations. For there to be even more of this, and for multi-disciplinary ways of working to be further normalised would be cool. I'd also love for new terminology to keep coming out that's a bit more fluid…seeing more things as art, seeing more things as performance, whether they’re happening on a stage or live-streamed from a toilet cubicle.
Also more support around social impact producing. I would like for there to be more linkages between artists and activists, artists and educators. For art to be even more integrated into the world, I suppose. The idea that you're making a work, but it doesn't end at the end of the show. And the audience can really easily put their energy and excitement somewhere where it might have flow-on effects to policy outcomes or support movements related to the themes of that show. Documentary filmmakers like Maya Newell (Gayby Baby, In My Blood It Runs) do this exceptionally well.
Especially since entertainment and arts are so powerful, and where people go to feel good…if you can feel good and be doing something constructive at the same time, then that's the holy grail, right? Making kindness as addictive as [insert drug] or binging RuPaul’s!
Do you have any advice for emerging multidisciplinary artists, especially in the performance space?
If you can, try to make your art work for you. If you’re compromising your mental health or damaging relationships in service of your shows, well, perhaps there are tweaks you can make. I’m sure we’ve all sat through talks about the problematic image of the tortured artist, but still it can be hard for that to sink in. I’ve definitely felt pressured to grate my traumatic histories 24/7… like, if I’m not bleeding for my art I’m not a legit artist. And of course being vulnerable, being honest, being brave enough to share our trauma can be a big part of making true, powerful work. But increasingly I’m trying to spark joy or at least genuine catharsis for myself through the art-making process, and that’s been really refreshing. If you can work in a creative flow that tickles your own pickle and makes you feel good you’re on to a great thing…because surviving in the industry is hard enough.
Who are you inspired by?
I got a copy of Grapefruit by Yoko Ono when I was quite young – it’s a collection of performative poems you can do to remember the joy and spontaneity of living in a 'cosmic giggle'. One of my favourites is 'Walk all over the city with an empty baby carriage.' She’s been a major inspiration of mine, along with Kim Noble, Salvador Dali, Virginia Woolf, oh and the animation Tuca & Bertie (voiced by Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong)!
I’ve also been binging horror flicks with my housemates lately, so Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) and A24 (Midsommar, Hereditary, The Farewell) have set my brain ablaze. The horror genre has been a really cathartic medium for examining everyday moments of discomfort and imagining them in their most physical, grizzly and terrifying forms.
What are you listening to?
I love a good audiobook. I’m currently listening to From the Corner of the Oval Office by Beck Dorey-Stein and Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation by Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens and Jasmine Syedullah. And lots of binaural beats to help focus through lockdown!
What are you reading?
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, City of God by Meyne Wyatt and Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer.
How do you practice self-care?
During lockdown I’ve been doing online dance parties with my housemates—very therapeutic. Also lots of craft projects with clay and wool, painting, drawing. Classic ‘iso hobby’ behaviour. I thought growing a sourdough starter would be nice self-care but as soon as my friend gave me her starter I freaked out about the commitment… can’t say I didn’t try I guess…
What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?
To me being Asian Australian is at once empowering and confusing, meaningful and questionable…it’s the reciprocated wink of solidarity with the only other ‘Asian’ in the room, and the non-reciprocated winks and subsequent sinking into the ground. It’s being angry at ever being called a ‘banana’, and unpacking inclinations to perform ‘whiteness on the inside’ with a pickaxe 3D printed from guilt. It’s realising that whatever ‘clubs’ that label gets me into or excludes me from, the only approval I need to strive for isn’t my parents’ or my partners’ or my colleagues’, but my own. And, honestly, I’m yet to fully gain my own approval. But I’m working on it.
I used to have this little exercise called ‘being okay with not being everyone's cup of tea'…in other words, rehearsing that muscle of not feeling like the world is going to end if you're not right for someone or something.
Interview and illustrations by dangerlam