about Lark.
artist statement:
Lark is a stop-motion and scratch film animator, and a self-described professional rummager. They dig through archival videos, old magazines, and their grandfather’s 16mm film collection, reconstructing both impersonal and personal fragments together. They create stop-motion and scratch film animations that are trans* in all senses of the term—transgenerational, transgressive, transgender, and transformational. Borrowing from Cathy Cohen, Lark sees transness not as a stable identity marker, but as a fugitive, lawless force—one that is fluid and escapes towards radical futures. Lark captures this notion of transness as elusive and disruptive through their movement and reappropriation of paper scraps and home videos. They are interested in a range of materials but are often drawn to those from the 1950s-1970s eras that depict consumerism, gender roles, and suburbanization. Lark grew up in the pinnacle of normality, a white middle-class suburbia with a large, flashy shopping mall. They are Taiwanese-Chinese American, but were raised by parents who grew up bouncing around rural America—much of their culture and language lost along the way. Their work reimagines and restructures their childhood’s rigidity—grasping at lost memories and connections to heritage, and simultaneously pushing forward into new, queerer territories. They are currently a Curatorial Intern at 500 Capp Street and Stephanie Syjuco’s studio assistant.
bio:
Lark is a recent Art Practice and Sociology graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. They live and create in San Francisco, California, but grew up in living in Southern Harlem, Taipei, and the Bay Area. They are currently a Curatorial Intern at 500 Capp Street (David Ireland House) in San Francisco and Stephanie Syjuco’s Studio Assistant.
contact:
instagram: @larkie.poo
email: larkc[at]berkeley.edu
smedley drive. senior project
Smedley Drive, 2024. 16mm scratch animation film, home videos, found footage, original audio collage. 5:32.
Wood, cyanotyped organza quilt, projection, 6 x 6 x 8'.
Smedley Drive is the name of the street my mother grew up on—a rural street in Pennsylvania, in a brick house built by my late grandfather. Earlier this year, I asked my grandmother to draw her house on Smedley Drive by memory. As she drew, she recalled memories of the house, describing its door, trees, and garage. But she kept redrawing the floor and roof, over and over again—omitting details she couldn’t visualize. As my grandmother’s memory fades, I long to learn more about her life—and the culture I’ve always felt disconnected from. In this installation, I’ve reconstructed her memories by hand-splicing 16mm home video footage from a family in Minnesota (purchased on eBay) and personal family home videos. This footage was then physically scratched using a needle to create an animation.
500 Capp Street
(David Ireland House)
Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, 500 Capp Steet’s mission is to encourage artistic experimentation, support new modes of living, and build community. 500 Capp Street holds the legacy of artist-driven spaces and Bay Area conceptualism through process-oriented and provocative arts programming.
As the 2025 Curatorial and Archival intern, I worked in David Ireland’s archive to curate works from his collection to put in coversation with Mildred Howard’s exhibit at our house. I installed all of the works and they were up for 8 weeks alongside Howard’s Collaborating with the Muses work. In addition, I created an imformational pamphlet about the works.
Curator’s Statement:
by Lark Chang-Yeh and Justin Nagle
Before obtaining his MFA at SFAI, Ireland partook in colonial acts of extractive collection through the import and sale of cultural objects and animal remains in his store Hunter Africa. Additionally, he led safaris in subsaharan African countries Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania---actions deeply entangled with colonial spectacle and exploitation. In light of this, we can understand that the works that deal with landscape, especially the abstracted painted photos of Skellig, could possibly operate as questions or attempts at reconciling one’s complicity in shaping landscapes through a colonial lens. As well as these attempts at understanding this legacy of colonial violence, they also ask questions of the viewer. Where do I fit within this landscape? How does the obfuscation leave open understandings beyond a white-colonial gaze, does it? Does abstraction, in both the photographs and sculptural objects, perpetuate or reorient this gaze/understanding?
These works, in conversation with the work by Mildred Howard, allow for deeper questions around violent legacies of religious oppression at the hands of European colonizers under the guise of helping the native population to become civilized, respectable, and/or worthy of citizenry. This connection is drawn not only through shared formal concerns of color, the red fabric of Howard’s work and the red paint/pigment of Ireland’s, but also in the religious idolatry, primarily of the cross, present in both.
Through my role as a the 2024 Digital Media and Programming intern at 500 Capp Street, I’ve learned how art organizations can build meaningful relationships between artists, art, and local communities. We’ve engaged community members through collective conversations and poetry readings about grief and decolonization, community walks with storytelling and tea, performances involving the public, and free writing workshops.
Below: A sample of my work for 500 Capp Street. I collaborated with one of our local artists, Champoy @champchampchampoy to document and film their mural on the outside of our building. We also had a mural walk through with the community and the artists---giving them a tour of two murals we did in the Mission District and explaining their context. We had conversations while painting their mural, also talking to residents and community members on the busy street corner. I took pictures of their mural and created a promotional video in the style of David Ireland painting the walls of his home, which was currently screening in our museum. I also created Instagram stories to promote the upcoming muralists.
More Soup, 2023, paper-cut out stop motion, 1:24, created from paper cut-out puppets and vintage campbell soup ads a loop of strange soup commercials play as cans of soup accumulate over time.
original mixed sound with samples from freesound
Racquet Fish, 2023, paper-cut out stop motion, 0:38, how-to graphics are repurposed with stop-motion . . . because why can’t youplay racquetball with a fish?
original mixed audio with samples from freesound
Another Day at the Park, 2023, paper-cut out stop motion, 3:37, a how-to tai chi book and a how-to soccer book are reconstructed in a video about nostalgia, coming of age, and queerness. another day at the park explores a shared soccer field between young soccer players and an older tai chi group. old, personal, and found voicemails tell a story about relics of people, places, and things that are remembered and lost.
original mixed audio with samples from freesound
Midnight Snack, 2022, paper-cut out stop motion, 0:30, I was hungry at midnight and put together paper cut-outs and an apple.
“saturday night inside out” - the avalanches and original sounds and samples
Suburban Memories, 2022, 0:25, paper-cut out stop-motion.
“birth of the flower (seagreen)” - candy claws
Thomas, 2022, 1:00, paper-cut out stop motion, this is a video portrait of thomas, whom i had the pleasure of speaking with on a total of two occassions. thomas works at trader joes, listens to mac demarco, and reads henry david thoreau. he’s in improv, is studying film, and has quite the sense of humor. in the spirit of his passion for improv, much of his portrait was improvised and loosely inspired by how he takes on a multitude of humorous characters during an improv show.
“colours” - the avalanches
Technocracy, 2021, paper-cut out stop motion, 1:00.
audio sampled from a voicemail and six songs by: the avalanches (3), the garden, the flying stars of brooklyn, and teo
apartment graduation shoot shot in collaboration with claire hsu. edited by me. shot digitally with natural lighting, edited in lightroom.
portrait photography of my friend sol and brand work for ditch day apparel. shot digitally, edited in lightroom.
sewing/design:
yeh means leaf- organza coat with pockets full of decaying organic materials. inspired by my grandmother’s favorite jacket, but reimagined through her faulty memory. when i ask her to remember and draw objects or places she once knew, she draws certain features repetitively, such as redrawing the roof and floor of her house over and over again. our family name “yeh” translates to leaf, and i collected various organic materials from the home i live in now. this jacket features 21 organza pockets.
shot digitally and edited by me on lightroom.
stick!! - stick pants and stick coat made of a curtain and wool.