Have you called mom?
single-channel digital video, stereo, text, 8:40
Frida was alone
in a 2-hectare house that belongs
to his late husband,
who died following her mother
the house was too big to clean
and she misses her daughter
Xien Tho kept telling us that
her husband would take her on a trip
while sitting on a Dutch-Javanese veranda
she keeps remembering her mother
I recently found myself
moving into the same house where
my grandmother was bedridden seven years ago
in a 2-hectare house that belongs
to his late husband,
who died following her mother
the house was too big to clean
and she misses her daughter
Xien Tho kept telling us that
her husband would take her on a trip
while sitting on a Dutch-Javanese veranda
she keeps remembering her mother
I recently found myself
moving into the same house where
my grandmother was bedridden seven years ago
‘Have you called mom?’ looks at the loneliness faced by elderly Chinese women in Lasem. In a place where the small Chinese community is at risk of being lost due to mass migration, the video brings together the image of the house as a main character in the 700-year history of Chinese settlement in Java. Using candid conversation as the sound, the work weaves the present moment with the everyday memories of these elderly women's spouses, mothers, children, and families who are no longer with them.