05.What I Can Confirm
Installation / Text
2026
Details:
Notarial documents, printed texts
Dimensions variable
Chinese / English
In 2021, while applying for permanent residency in the United States, I saw a document certifying my birth for the first time. I had been told that my birth date was altered when it was registered. I have no interest in confirming whether the recorded date is the day I was actually born. I can confirm that the document itself is authentic.
Alongside it, I place numbered statements about a name I was given, the person I became, and ten years without seeing my mother.
Black bars conceal personal information in the documents. In my statements, the same black brings the words “What I can confirm” into view.