Tacoma Method Memorial Knot
The event brought in over 400 people. On May 10th, speakers from La Resistencia and Sông2Sea told attendees about campaigns for migrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center and the affects of imperialism on the Asian diaspora.
This project would’ve been impossible without the support of my loved ones and funding from the Northwest Film Forum and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Thank you to everyone who witnessed— together we make visible the invisible.
Tacoma Method Memorial Knot will continue with a book and public event coming in winter 2026, supported by 4Culture.
In 1885, there were over 500 Chinese people living in Seattle and Tacoma. Within a year, they had all been violently kicked out, as a part of a country wide campaign of sinophobia. My ancestors were here in this country at the time, and the trauma from these events live in my bloodline. I decided to collaborate with local artists and writers to create a large scale project documenting these events, along with reflections on how migrant workers are being treated in the modern day. My goal with this project is to memorialize those who lost their homes, and learn lessons from history to empower our organizing today.
The first iteration of Tacoma Method Memorial Knot took place at ARTS at King Street Station from May 9th - 21st 2025. I tied 500 knots as performance art, one for each person who was expelled, accompanied by an ancestral altar made by local artists and two poems by Brian Dang.
Ancestral Altar
Workers’ Teacups by Amy Vong
Porcelain Incense Bowl with Cobalt Carbonate by Katharina 梁美花 Brinschwitz
Porcelain Candlesticks with Cobalt Smoke by Andrew Asakawa
Eternal Offerings by Tien Austin
Dragonfruit by Nhi Vo
Ancestral Altar as shown at ARTS at King Street Station.
Ancestral Altar as seen at ARTS at King Street Station, alongside a slideshow of Ahmoy's family members.
The Knot
Live knot tying at ARTS at King Street Station.
Steel coin was welded at Pratt Fine Arts Center.
Promotional image by Teddy McDonald.
Process of knot tying with assistance by Lew Walker-Low.
Promotional image by Teddy McDonald.
Promotional image by Teddy McDonald.
Promotional Art & Poetry
Regrade
by Brian Dang
Hell is one great big hill
and we were the first regrade.
They could not tell us from the rocks,
we were the erratic
dropped a million years ago,
the cliffside hillside sandblown
terrain we molted with
our hammered labor ran-through.
they used their giants
to wash us out.
It took a million gallons a day
aimed right at the mound of our mouths:
all the clay, and sand, and cobble:
our doors, our windows, our porches:
our hands, our feet, and our chests:
they took from us
to cut us out, to scatter in pieces,
and wash out to sea.
Heaven is one flat surface.
We, the people of the inside,
and the migrant workers,
were the stone-faced
protrusion, jagged detour, blown-out
gravel, left to dust.
Next year, the hill will be flattened
now that the way is clear.
Whatever bed we make
becomes concrete.
This place remembers all
we’ve done to it, and in turn
has done to us.
After our work in their mills,
their factories, their railroads,
our hands, our hands –
they’ve become indecipherable
from this city.
