A conversation between Anna Ting Möller and Esther Fan
Anna Ting Möller is an artist living and working in New York City and Stockholm. Möller received an MFA from Columbia University, New York and a BFA from Konstfack University, Stockholm, SE.
“I work with a kombucha-culture gifted to me in 2015. My work creates a lineage of offspring based on one matrilineal “kombucha tree”. For me this way of working is a means with which to exercise artistic freedom of production; it is also a crucial way of exploring an alternative way of understanding the symbolic function of the mother in creative processes.
Over a decade ago I started tracing my heritage and migration, spending years searching for my birth mother. The Chinese philosopher Laozi said: ‘All things go back to their origin’...”
Esther: Can you tell me a little about yourself, your practice and why you chose to participate in our show?
Anna Ting: I am an interdisciplinary artist based in New York, working at the intersection of materiality, transformation, and bodily processes. By incorporating kombucha cultures, my practice challenges conventional notions of life, death, and lineage. My work engages with themes of the sexualized and grotesque, critically addressing societal constructs, particularly the understanding and fetishization of the Other. Through collaboration, performance, movement, I create dynamic, evolving experiences that unfold over time.
I gladly accepted the opportunity to participate in Hidden Narratives because I am interested in engaging in dialogue with anthropology. Exploring how humans understand life in the context of art and relationality is enriching for my practice.
Esther: How did you come to find art or want to be an artist? What does art mean to you?
Anna Ting: For a long time, it wasn’t clear that I would become an artist. I was not a straight path, having explored various roles within the creative sphere without identifying myself as an artist. At the time, I didn’t realize that I could be an Artist.
It was inevitable for me to end up as an artist—embracing both the good and the bad that comes with it. While I love it, I also struggle with it. Like with anything in life, it always has a sunny and a dark side.
As for what art means to me, big question. I think it can mean very little. It can mean everything. I do believe art has been important to my life; it grounds me and provides a foundation. I've been living in different cities, my journey has been all over. It's always good to come back to something that you can find within and not from external factors.
Esther: You mentioned using kombucha culture in your work, and materiality. So I'm really interested in how you came across kombucha, and how you integrate this into your work.
Anna Ting: It was kind of random that I started working with this kombucha culture. There’s a quote by Laozi, the Chinese philosopher, that says,“All things go back to their origin.” which I took quite literally. It catalyzed a search within myself, to explore China, which meant going back to my origins. Over the course of some years, I traveled back and forth, and during one stay, a woman I lived with gifted me a Mother Kombucha.
This is the same culture I continue to nurture and use in my work today. Every piece I create originates from that particular mother, which I’ve smuggled across borders in different PET bottles.
The kombucha has become a central element of my artistic process. It serves as a framework to explore broader themes like motherhood, offspring, contamination, and parasitism. This method has opened doors to questions I hadn’t previously known how to address.
Esther: In anthropology, we talk about how kinship is constructed. People used to believe blood is all heritage was. Then, you start to deconstruct that. What does that mean?
Then there was this shift from the idea of rootedness being vertical. In China, there’s talk about how you’re “rooted.” Some social scientists propose that we can create connections and lineage laterally. What happens in diaspora, migration, or adoption? You’re spreading these seeds everywhere.
What you're creating with kombucha are these odes to the reverse of the rooted tree, transportable, growing potted plants.
Anna Ting: I like that. It ties into my more recent projects in the U.S. Over the past two years, I’ve been engaged with the concept of grafting—much like what is done with trees. While it occurs naturally in the wild, grafting is also used to optimize apple tree cultivation, allowing multiple variations to grow from one mother tree. Reflecting on this process introduces layers of complexity, serving as an analogy for how life can unfold.
Esther: Yeah, I think that's kind of the point. There’s this anthropologist Tim Ingold who talks about how living is putting out lines with each other that get tangled together. It doesn't become easier to understand, but life is connected and complicated by relationships. It's the making and putting out there.
You touched on your transnational or cross cultural journey being echoed in your work. Tell me more.
Anna Ting: My practice is informed by my personal history, and although I’m uncertain about where I want to position myself. On one hand it serves as a source of material. On the other hand, it can get emotionally draining. I believe that when you engage with personal subjects, they often take on a universal resonance. Currently, I find myself grappling with how to set boundaries between the personal and my art.
My personal cross-cultural journey is quite explicit in my work. At times, I feel that it doesn’t fully capture the depth which creates a frustration with the gap between the art itself and how it’s translated into spoken words, which often fail to do it justice.
When we talk about art, it’s easy to oversimplify. The true complexity of a work becomes apparent only through direct experience. Therefore I like to mention that it is important to stay with the work and to not rush it.
Esther: Boundaries are really interesting. For artists, you're creating at the adjunct of life and art, it becomes hard to separate. It can be easy for something significant, like an event or relationship, to take up alot of space in your life and overshadow your work. Where is the boundary? I think about that in the context of what you said about your journey.
Anna Ting: I think about that. In a way, I’m definitely in a full on relationship with my art practice.
Esther: What's your favorite thing about making art?
Anna Ting: This should be an easy question to answer, but after doing this for a minute, I sometimes forget what my favorite aspect is. It might sound a bit cliché, but one of my favorite moments is when I become completely absorbed in the work—entering the flow, where time seems to disappear. It’s an incredibly rewarding!
Esther: Can you tell us about the works that you're showing with us?
Anna Ting: It's three wall pieces, two made together as a pair and one separate piece from another series.
In developing my practice, since I work with living organisms, the sculptures and installations I exhibit are kept in a living state. However, when I receive them back in the studio, it’s challenging to know when to let them “rest.” It’s not sustainable to keep all my works alive, as it would require constant care and attention.
This process involves learning to let go. At a certain point, I have to decide when to do so, and that’s when I begin creating flat wall works from the residues and remnants of my sculptures. These works take on a new life, allowing me to preserve and recontextualize them, rather than letting them fully decay. It’s my way of keeping them with me, but in a different formats.
Esther: I love that so much. It's like whole is greater than the sum of its parts, what do you do with those pieces? You take it out and it becomes something that stands on its own.
Esther: So what’s next for you?
Anna Ting: I’ve been working on a new sculpture, and I’m fully immersed in the process. I look forward to sharing it with others.