Ancestors Forest reflects on the passage from a family-owned business to mass production of textile factories in Guatemala. The artist recalls the business of his grandfather, a Chinese immigrant, called Sastrería LAM, established in Ipala, Guatemala, in the mid-20th century. People from all over the town came to this place to order suits and other garments: it was a store frequented and respected by the Chinese community. Today, the maquilas—industrial textile workshops located in countries of the Global South—have displaced small textile companies, and thus spaces for community engagement. Only one of Sastrería LAM’s sewing machines survives, which the artist found in a storage room in Guatemala City. The sound work juxtaposes industrial sounds of a maquila and those of his family’s old sewing machine.
The artist says: “Lam, the surname I inherited from my mother, means ‘forest,’ in Cantonese. The sound composition is a way of not translating but of feeling the conflicts and the stories of the threads that gave life to the forest of my ancestors.”