Artist Lap-See Lam: ‘My work is a way to connect generations’

The Swedish artist’s new installation explores how the culture, motifs and cliches of Chinese restaurants reflect the evolving diaspora – and she’s made it a family affair

For the artist Lap-See Lam, the Chinese restaurant abroad can be anything: a pragmatic business pursued for the sake of economic survival, a magic realist self-kitschified illusion, or a very real place where families gather, childhoods are made and memories are forged. Often it is all these things and more. Lam remembers growing up in her family’s restaurant, Bamboo Garden, in Stockholm.

“It was a typical Ming, Qing dynasty-inspired restaurant,” she says over a video call from her kitchen in Stockholm, sitting behind a large, yellow and blue vintage poster from an art exhibition. There was a jade-green pagoda, she says; textiles embroidered with koi fish patterning; decor made of porcelain. And also: “really comfortable sofas” she laughs. “That’s the best thing with the Chinese restaurant – it’s a family-friendly place, right? You can bring toddlers and they can roam around. Which we did.”

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