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