The Red Egg

Red eggs have always been present in Ivonne’s life—a symbol of birth, continuity, and the cycle of life itself. Through a reflective and autoethnographic approach, she weaves together family archives from her childhood with the documentation of her grandmother’s 91st birthday celebration. In tradition, red eggs are prayers for a prosperous future, but for Ivonne, they also mark the passage of time.

As a 32-year-old Chinese-Indonesian woman, Ivonne sees the red egg as more than a symbol of hope. It becomes a reminder of the vulnerability of the female body, of aging, and the fading ability to give birth. She reinterprets this inherited symbol, tying it to her lived experience and the liminal space she inhabits as a Chinese-Indonesian woman. Through the red egg, she traces the delicate thresholds between tradition, the body, and time.