Cocoon

Warmth, protection, growth, metamorphosis - some things associated with the word ‘cocoon’. Also - a shell; a husk discarded once the creature has successfully outgrown its binds.

Our cocoon is made up of stories,
hints of nostalgia imbedded in certain smells,
actions or words,

and sometimes only feeling
but not knowing.

My cocoon is made up of things
we never spoke about
and don’t speak of anymore,

a familiarity which has no root or place
to return to when certain people go,
but also faith in what
you don’t fully understand.

As third culture kids, children born into two narratives in which they see themselves in neither, we adopted a third - a chasm still that breathes nostalgia but feels imaginary.

And in the process of making space for ourselves in this foreign world, we emerge from these constructions. But in doing so, we start to lose it - a metaphor for the cultures that shaped our identity, a container of emotions and nostalgia connected to our family’s journey and reasons, a structure that may have generated protection but also pain.

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Cocoon is a portrait series that seeks to explore vulnerability and the journey of identifying the self in a space that one may or may not call home. Within this mission, the project looks specifically at the Asian diasporic experience, collecting portraits of collaborators within self-constructed cocoons in their homes and private space.

“I have struggled to prove myself into existence” wrote Cathy Park Hong in Minor Feelings, about her own experience of being Asian-American. Reflecting on the liminal space in which the Asian diaspora exist and move between in Western countries, Cocoon tries to visualise our existence.

Stories of immigration; of sacrifice; of isolation; and of resilience. The cocoon could not be a more appropriate metaphor — encapsulating the duality, as well as the solitary, liminality of the Asian diasporic experience.

Starting from 2022, to date I have invited over 20 women, who identify as 'Asian-...' - whether in Australia or the United States or within Asia - I, as a second-generation Chinese-Australian photographer, create a space for them to be vulnerable and visible.

In 2024, I exhibited select images from this series for the first time - first in March (Sydney) and then again in November (Tokyo). Both solo shows; the latter of which, I exhibited three mural-sized portraits from this series at Bakuroyokoyama MIDORI.so gallery in Eastern Tokyo.

Spanning almost two meters in width, I made these three, large colour darkroom handprints at one of the only remaining commercial darkroom colour labs in the country, sandyprints. Each portrait was accompanied by an enlarged proof sheets detailing the process of the shoot in its entirety. Alongside these prints was an installation piece featuring a vinyl tablecloth embellished with family archival photographs - using nostalgia as a tool to examine my own vulnerability in response to the metaphor, I bared my own Chinese-Australian upbringing and memories. In accompaniment to the images, there was a soundscape, which I had made with Sydney producer Jackson Fester. Utilising field recordings I collected, we used tape loops and synth chords to build a soundtrack for the space, in hopes of bringing the complex emotions in the photographs to life.
(See https://www.dontcallmesheryl.com/cocoon to view installation pictures and to listen to the soundtrack)

Cocoon remains an ongoing series; I continue to build on the series with each year, photographing new collaborators in new places. For the next phase of the project, I have been collaborating with writer and friend Michelle Wang to pair the images with poetry, and designer Sammy Yee to produce a photobook zine.
(View our draft, pre-design https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bnc8a1064bziehe2sp4sc/2025_Photoworks_Photo-Poetry-Publication.pdf?rlkey=kjvxt50qh3ekopqiwpby58cn0&st=y1ya8pqu&dl=0)