Books that traveled the world are part of Lee Mingwei's The Travelers project, currently on display at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York. Kevin Ho / For China Daily

NEW YORK - A little more than one year ago on the day of the Chinese Moon Festival, conceptual artist Lee Mingwei handed out 100 blank notebooks. Each participant was asked to write a personal story about "leaving home", elaborating on the significance in his or her life.

The notebooks are now on display at New York's Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), their pages filled with handwritten memories inscribed by a range of people such as renowned artist Maya Lin, who designed MOCA's building in Chinatown.

In one of the notebooks, Lin wrote from Colorado last year: "I sensed that neither my mom nor my dad felt truly at home in Athens, Ohio, that their home in China had, due to the politics of the time, in a way disappeared. They felt displaced, and I think that this sense of not having a home was transferred to my brother and I. I have lived in NYC for almost 25 years, the longest I have ever lived anywhere, but I still see myself as a Midwesterner, not as a true New Yorker."

In addition to the notebooks, participants were asked to upload information and images for The Travelers Project to a companion website, http://traveler.mocanyc.org.

Another entry in one of the books, from Margaret Chou, a leasing agent, reads: "The definition of home for me is hard to define, blurry. When people ask where I come from when I am in a foreign country, I say the US. But if I am within the US, I will say that I'm from California. But if I'm around my home or in San Francisco, I say Taiwan. Isn't that interesting?"

That struggle to define home is one in which the artist is familiar.

Growing up in Taiwan, he and his sister lived in a rented apartment in Taipei while his family lived outside the city. Later, he and his sister moved to the Dominican Republic and then the US for boarding school, just two more places that could have been defined as home, he said.

"Looking back, I never felt that there was a home-home," said Lee, 47. "That affected who I am. In many ways, we were often depending on the mercy of strangers. In order for me to maneuver around the city, I often came across individuals who would help me if I asked them. I realized that was a way I could survive, and I continue to use that as a means of survival as I travel around the world."

In fact, the type of art Lee is interested in reflects the idea of "relational aesthetics", which he defines as using relationships between people as an art medium.

"In The Travelers Project, there are physical elements in the show as a result of the books being passed around, but it's also a relationship between this person and the next person and each person's idea of home," he said.

Also on display at MOCA is an exhibit by Lee titled The Quartet Project, an audio installation that explores similar themes. As one enters the room, music is piped in from speakers above four structures shielding projected images. As the viewer attempts to peek around the edges to view the images, motion sensors turn the projections off.

For Lee, this inability and desire to view the images represents the elusive nature of people and most subjects, he said.

"People ask me, 'Are you Chinese? American?' I just say I'm none of them, but I'm all of them," he said. "But when they try to see it closer and look into me, it disappears and they cannot see who I am."

He goes on to say that he thinks all things, by nature, are elusive.

"When you look at the state of an electron, just by observing it becomes the other. You can never pin down the size and velocity of an electron. It's fascinating."

The choice of music for The Quartet Project was intentional. Antoine Dvorak's American String Quartet was inspired both by Czech classical music and African-American folk music, producing a unique blend that Lee said he found inspiring.

Herb Tam, curator and director of exhibitions at MOCA, said that Lee was a perfect fit for the museum.

"It was very important that MOCA work with an artist who could be sensitive to what we do as a museum, which is to tell the stories of Chinese immigrants to America, but also extend our mission past the museum's walls," Tam said. "Through The Travelers Project, Lee allowed people of all ethnicities from all over the world to reflect on what it means to leave home, connecting a very personal, visceral experience to a concept which is at the core subject of the museum."