Myself Between Others
Florence Yee
A Space Windows
May 3 – September 15, 2019
Curated by: Marissa Largo
Diaspora relies on an unwarranted nostalgia. Through our absorption of a second-hand culture, we are told stories and given objects that have meanings that are sometimes attached to a place that we’ve never known. This false sense of nostalgia operates differently between members of the community and members outside of that community. The objects are in constant negotiation between their status as comforts of the so-called homeland, and meaningless commodification.
The artworks trace the transformation of diasporic Cantonese signifiers into kitsch, as well as their site-specific histories. As the A Space Windows appear between a commercial vitrine and a plexiglass box, they blur the lines of these art objects between fetish objects for middle-class mantles, objects Othered by their “traditional” appearance in gallery spaces, and contemporary art objects. Challenging the essentialist boundaries of authenticity around the lived experience of culture, the works mimic private and public spaces, questioning belonging and our daily cultivations of nostalgia.
Biographies
Florence Yee is a 2.5 generation, Cantonese-struggling visual artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Tiohtia:ke/Montreal. Their interest in Cantonese-Canadian history has informed an art practice examining diasporic subjectivities through the lens of gender, racialization, queerness and language. With a BFA from Concordia University, they are now pursuing an MFA at OCAD U in Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design as a SSHRC recipient and Delaney Scholar.
Marissa Largo is an Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies at York University. Her research and creation focus on the intersections of community engagement, race, gender and Asian diasporic cultural production. Her forthcoming book, Unsettling Imaginaries: Filipinx Contemporary Artists in Canada (University of Washington Press) examines the work and oral histories of artists who imagine Filipinx subjectivity beyond colonial logics.