Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
Brenda Joy Lem, Ngukkei: Family House Home
My ancestral culture includes both village culture from Toisan China and three generations of Chinese-Canadian culture. In Ngukkei: Family House Home, I document oral histories as told to me by various family members in eight silkscreen banners and two artist books. My father’s family ran a laundry like so many other Chinese families of the pioneer generation. They toiled and survived, worked long and hard, through depression, racial prejudice and isolation as the first Chinese family in Oshawa. My mother’s family has also been in Canada over 100 years. The making of Ngukkei is a part of my own struggle to survive and resist. Family stories of survival can become tools for our own survival.
Dohee Miller, Time Machine
I learned the ancient art of Oriental brush painting in Korea. When I immigrated to Canada in 1988, I was fascinated with European art history and the works of the Old Masters. These new experiences inspired the work in this exhibition.
In my work I paint myself into Master paintings. I use a realistic approach combined with a surreal and dreamy intent to encourage the viewer to join me on a journey into the past to interact with the characters of the 15th to 17th century period. The viewer can thus have a light-hearted experience, enjoying the humour and wit of the imagination and this form of escapism.
bryan mulvill, World Tea Party
bryan mulvill, a photographer, ink brush painter and videographer has been holding tea parties around the world for over ten years, spreading his expertise and passion in the art of tea growing, preparing, serving and drinking, and encouraging inter-cultural connection and understanding.
He will install a fully functional Living Asian Heritage Tea Room at the RAG during Asian Heritage Month. In addition, archival evidence of the cult of social tea drinking in Richmond past and present will be on display. During the exhibition, he will not only act as the tea room butler, but will also photograph guests at tea, thus creating a living archive.
