Collected Letters is a contemporary piece created out of 1,600 porcelain letters and Chinese radicals seemingly suspended in midair.  Commissioned specially for the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s 50th anniversary, it hangs in the corner of the second-floor loggia of the museum, where the clean, modern display is juxtaposed with the collection of ancient Chinese ceramics dating back to 960 A.D. By presenting both letters from the Latin alphabet as well as jumbled Chinese radicals, the exhibition suggests a unity of differences between the two cultures, eastern and western.  When viewed in the larger context of the gallery, it presents a perspective of the two cultures moving forward in time together.  The exhibit makes the viewer reexamine the basis of culture and communication by offering different meanings and phrases quite literally contained within the display like a puzzle, by itself indecipherable but which makes sense when pieced together.  The use of porcelain, a medium long associated with and often even referred to as “china,” to shape letters and radicals displays the versatility of the medium usually considered traditional, as well as demonstrates the influence shared between China and America.