DO YOU HAVE YOUR RECEIPT? (2024)
paper, paper shredder, whoever is reading this right now

As a transracial transnational adoptee/ forced immigrant, my baby passport was a one-time-use document necessary for my adoption/ sale/ export from China to Canada, from Asianness to whiteness. A passport, the most important document that allows us freedom of movement, can also be a destruction of identity, a proof of sale, a one-way ticket. Here, 鲁文莲 and Charlotte Lian Carbone co-exist for the first time on paper. 

DO YOU HAVE YOUR RECEIPT? is a direct invitation for the viewer to “please take” and “please shred” copies of my Chinese passport while observing a large scale version of my Canadian passport. The viewer becomes material as an active participant in the choice of destroying identity. There is a clear voluntary permission to destroy the Chinese pieces, but just because it is allowed, does it make it ok? My work asks:

“who takes, who shreds, who treasures?”
“is there an ethical way to commodify children?”.
“what are the gaps between legality and morality?”

As more countries close their doors to transnational adoption, is it because of human rights reckoning or shrinking supply/demand/profit?