She knits wearable art from magazine shreds – Hong Kong artist Movana Chen on using paper to ‘make love’
- The Hong Kong artist known for her wearable art made from shredded paper talks about fostering a close-knit global community, as her work shows in the city
I was born in a village in Guangdong in 1975. My passport, however, gives my birth date as 1974. When you are born at home in a small village, you don’t get a birth certificate. It wasn’t until years later, when we moved to Hong Kong, that I got a birth certificate.
I’m the eldest of seven kids – five sisters and one brother. When my parents registered my birth, they got the date wrong. They registered four of us incorrectly, as being born on August 10.
Growing up, we spoke the Chaozhou dialect. As the eldest, I helped my mum look after my younger siblings.
Casting stones
We had no money to buy toys and there were no shops in the village, so we made our own games. I made simple toys and collected small rocks on the street and played with them.
Our meals were simple – sweet potatoes, rice and fish. I often ate sitting outside on the street with the cat. We lived near the sea and my dad worked as a delivery person, carrying fish to the market on his bicycle. My mum always had a baby on her back when she worked, weaving fabric.