Becoming who I am A journey through the evolution of an artist

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

i’m multimedia artist i do photography

painting video and installation this is

my recent installation work called

interweaving

in this work i use pins and thread

as my main media pins might

create pain but they hold the thread

from the deep root

my chinese culture and go through the

canvas

and transform into western culture

the thread across each other create

special pattern

and space and continue to reach out

to the future it forms who

i am the original idea

comes from my childhood memory

this is an old room in the picture which

i took

in the museum in my hometown when

i was a little child i often saw my

grandma and my mom

sitting on a wood loom weaving and

spinning daily a wood shutter flying

back and forth

between two layers of cotton thread

pleated patterns slowly appeared big

ones

small ones square ones rectangular ones

red ones blue ones every beautiful piece

was woven with a chirping song

later my mom left home to look for a new

opportunity

she finally worked in a new textile

factory

and it was a very good job for a female

at that time my mom was very excited

and she told me that a new job opened

her eyes

to see the world differently the

traditional

wood loom disappeared and the old

weaving chirping sound

is left in my memory

along with the globalization a bigger

migration is brilliant in china

people leaving home to big cities or to

foreign countries in order to look for

more opportunities my family

was part of the great migration

i decided to leave china to be educated

in canada

because i’m was so eager to see and

understand the world

more my father had owned business

in china and i once worked there

as accountant i came to vancouver

to learn commerce and later i would

return to china

and continue his business

my life in the new country trained me

dramatically

i worked very hard to learn english in

order to fit into the society

i was so happy to know i got into ubc

i was planning to apply for commerce

as my major in the second year

when i had to choose an elective course

i enrolled in an art drawing class

i always liked the art but i had never

tried it because my father told me that

art could not provide a good job

the drawing class was very challenging i

could not understand what contemporary

art was

i even had a tutor help me because i

desperately did not want to fail the

class

at the same time i was struggling to

understand

the art projects we were doing in the

class

because of the cultural differences

this was when i started to re-identify

myself as a chinese canadian

by the end of the term i loved it and i

become more curious about art

i decided to pursue my study in the art

so i shift my major from commerce to

visual art

but it was only in the second and third

year of visual art class

that i started to think like an artist

as a new immigrant in canada i was still

confused about

my identity i experienced both

peace and conflict on one hand

i need to learn and understand the

newness in order to fit into the host

country

on the other hand i always feel the

primordial pool of

my origin it is for this

reason that my art expressions

focus on cultures and identities

and depicted in this work where

there are two of me a chinese version

and a western version we were sitting

and communicating sometimes we agree

sometimes we argue after graduated

from ubc i went back to my hometown in

china

but instead of going to my father’s

factory

as he expected me to i opened my

own art studio i was teaching and

creating artworks there

i had my solo show called the wind

i used 2 thousand pinwheels to create

the wind

and travel between chinese culture and

the western culture

from the past to the present time

my hometown had changed a lot since

i left a lot of new high-rises

were built and all the houses were

destroyed

i started taking the pictures to record

the change

as i took more pictures i realized

the new buildings in my hometown were

very similar to canada’s

and the square windows on the buildings

also remind me of my mom’s

claws pattern the one she used to weave

this weaving scale was lost for years

i start to look back to my family living

history

it is very interesting to see how the

loom machines

and my family were changed along with

the time

after staying china for five years

i moved back to canada with my son

i created artwork at home in order to

take care of my son

at the same time the inspiration

from my family living history i painted

a series

of work throughout of the history

different loom machines were invented in

order to increase

efficiency from fabrics

clothing also went through different

processes and

finally exported abroad

continuing my family winning journey

my shuttle is my artist’s brush moving

across the canvas of my life

it carries my memories records my

current life and search for my future

within my chinese and western experience

together in this installation

you can see the map of sudo on top

and the map of the great vancouver on

the bottom

i use thread to connect them together

and

form a unique space and shape

in my recent work i applied more

weaving ideas i use pins

and threads as my main media on my

canvas

i apply traditional patterns and colors

into my artworks and

as i process the work i found it is very

interesting

that i’m able to build up many layers on

the canvas

and because of the distance between the

thread

and the canvas my work looks like 3d

artwork from different angles

they look very different depending on

where the light shines

it creates a shade on another part of a

canvas

which creates additional layer

and the light changes the artwork looks

different i keep moving forward

and experimenting to see what i can

accomplish

i use more pins and let myself wander

more freely

on the canvas i have

brought my some of my very recent works

here

i try to create different shapes on the

canvas

and build up different depths and layers

on my canvas

they are not regular 2d canvas work they

are more like 3d

sculpture works the thread

takes me into a unique space to

understand

how many possibilities there are

weaving becomes a very powerful way

for me to reconnect my family my past

my chinese culture however third canvas

it’s transfer into my present and

connect with western culture

even reach out to the future

today as a female artist i create

artworks guided by my female sensitivity

and a global vision i took the wooden

shutter

from my mom and started my new adventure

in canada i applied my own experience

and new possibilities into my art

practice

through creating my works i have

connected my past

to present life overcome my fear and

struggle build up my students and

courage

to create a new vision in my life

throughout i re-identified who

i am i’m not just a chinese

or just a canadian i carried both

chinese

and the western cultures which provided

me with a global vision

to see the world as a multicultural

artist

the chirping sun continues it crosses

the oceans

from my birthplace of sudo to my new

home

in vancouver it transferred from my

mom’s traditional rooms

to my canvas filled with pins and

thread it continues to inspire me

transforming from the past to present

interweaving a new vision of life and

[Applause]

world

you