13. Derek Souvannavong: re: papaya salad, 7 min, 2023

Description of Work

re: papaya salad examines the embodiment of cultural and societal flavours that inform the artist’s identity. A staple of Lao cuisine, the ritual of preparing papaya salad includes gestures of slicing, mixing, pounding, and folding flavours together to create a dish so rich and diverse in substance. Souvannavong is investigating the ephemerality and fermentation within his identity. Influenced by the marination of ancient cultural traditions as well as Western society-shaping and moulding, he integrates Lao silk textile projections and modern Mylar materials (through the traditional Lao fabric wrapping technique called “pa kathiew") as transdisciplinary wearables.

Bio

Toronto-based emerging artist Derek Souvannavong is a 2022 graduate of the BFA Honours Dance Program at York University. He has performed in various works by Peggy Baker, Ballet Creole, Rock Bottom Movement, Rumi Jeraj, and dreamwalkerdance. Of Lao-heritage, Souvannavong wishes to continue exploring relations between Lao dance forms and the Western diaspora of contemporary dance.

14. Jade Macatumpag: Penchant, 2 min, 2023

Description of Work

Penchant: A strong or habitual liking for something/tendency to do something.

Penchant is the culmination and extraction of learning to understand sound as a medium for the past year. What feels like the very beginning of pulling the different spaces Jade occupies into view through video. Penchant expresses her constant search for understanding of self and other through sound and movement. Oscillating between holding on and letting go of desire and fear through a disciplined practice, which can feel like a constant spinning.

Bio

Jade is an interdisciplinary artist with a current focus on the interconnection between sound and movement, and how the two create a portal into past and future lives. Jade is in the constant practice of using creative mediums as a compass into the deepest desires of the heart and mind.

15. Emerald Repard-Denniston: Hole, 10 min, 2023

Description of Work

"I’m digging a big fat hole to China." Emerald references Jordan Peel’s Sunken Place, describing the feeling of falling into a dream and catching yourself... what if you don’t catch yourself? This ongoing experimental project begins with video documentation of her digging her second hole at Sunnyside Beach. She overlaps sketches of her doodles and an audio recording of her conversation with her sister. Emerald wants to explore the sunken place as a visual representation of this universal feeling of being stuck. By investigating this psychological phenomenon of people not having a voice, she interrogates her psyche within her realities and dreams. This research begins with investigating various meanings of the word "hole," such as rabbit hole - Alice, erotic hole - booty, fishing hole - ice, black hole - invisible, wormhole - hypothetical; Hole as portal, hole as tunnel, hole to sunken.

Bio

Emerald Repard-Denniston is visual artist based in Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam/Vancouver, and Tkaronto/Toronto. She is a multidisciplinary artist drawn to painting, digital media, and community organizing. Through her practice she plays around with themes of humour, cynicism, and detachment. Her research focuses on contextualizing issues within the contemporary social world, including: issues of representation, diasporic story telling, and feminist/queer theories.

12. Khiem Hoang: <UNDEFINED // INDEFINITE>, Video, 4:45 min, 2023

Description of Work:

<UNDEFINED // INDEFINITE> is an exploration of identity formation in the midst of existential dread. Rather than continue numbing the pain, the artist seeks to reaffirm their sense of self through art. This series envisions a notion of identity free from cultural and capitalist structures.

“If I was a formless vessel, what would differentiate me?”

Hoang documents his journey through scattered notes, haphazard video diaries, cryptic collages, slamming riffs, and a lot of movement.

Bio

Khiem Hoang is a writer and musician with a passion for counterculture. His voice is cheeky, chaotic, and often sentimental. Whether he’s working on a poem, report, song, or interview, Khiem always seeks to explore and understand. He thinks a lot about culture and community.

3. Aysia Tse: BEAN CURD SOUP FT. YE-YE, Sound, 1:04, 2023

Dried Bean Curd x2, Bronze Casting, 2023

Please note: Visitors are welcome to touch and hold the bronze castings.

Description of Work:

Sound: This sound piece documents the process of my yé-yé (爷爷, grandfather) teaching me how to make his bean curd soup, a comforting Chinese dish steeped in my childhood memories. The polyrhythmic beat was recorded with a contact mic, sampled from the sounds of liquid contents sloshing around in my stomach. Listening closely, you may be able to hear the cracking, soaking, and rubbing of the bean curd; the chopping of mushrooms and meat; the soup boiling, slurping, eating, and the voices of my grandfather and me.

Bronze: This reflective piece engages the preservation of diasporic memory through objects, tied to memories as a child of eating my grandfather’s bean curd soup. Dried bean curd, made solid through the process of bronze casting, feels heavy and solid in my hands. The transformation from natural casting processes represents the physical and metaphorical solidification of early memories connected to culture and tradition, speaking to the passing down of intergenerational knowledge, the materiality of love and familial care. 

FOOD ACTIVATION: To activate the gallery space and our collective diasporic work, I will make a big pot of bean curd soup that my grandfather taught me how to make. This process of learning is documented in my sound piece BEAN CURD SOUP FT. YE-YE. As an opportunity to share and warm up our bodies from the inside out, I want to share a comforting bowl of soup to each guest as an act of care and love. Each person then becomes a part of the work, and so does the time and space we spend together.

Bio

Aysia Tse (she/her) is an emerging artist majoring in Life Studies and minoring in Art and Social Change at OCAD University. Interested in the intersections of community education, art and activism, Aysia is building a socially engaged practice that connects to constructive action within communities. In addition to community arts, her creative practice is currently focused on movement-based and new media work with themes relating to madness, queerness, and diasporic identity.

4.Caitlin Chan: That’s not quite how I remember it!, Sound, 2 min, 2023

Description of Work:  

This piece explores how the game of MahJong can be used to continue familial traditions in the city wherein I have none. By distorting the key sounds found in a round of MahJong, this piece seeks to highlight how the joys of the game can be disconnected, replicated, and transfigured entirely when it is being played without those whom I initially learned the game from. As someone who's lived diasporic experiences have been fairly low-key, through this diastories soundscape I wanted to portray a non-traumatic diasporic narrative.

Bio

Caitlin Chan is an artist who is a recent settler of Tkaronto via the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is 2.5 generation Chinese-Canadian. She is interested in the relationship between how we mediate through cities and how that affects the way we communicate/participate in media. 

1. Gladys Lou: Semiotics of Water, Video, 5 min, 2023

Description of Work:

Semiotics of Water is a performance video and experimental sound piece of the changing states of water and the fluidity of memories and time. The sonic poetry weaves together oceanic and electromagnetic waves, capturing the frequencies within bodies, light, and dreamscapes.

Using hydrophone and electromagnetic microphones, the work utilizes a range of field-recorded and collected sound from chimes, bells, percussions, music boxes, wind, rain, foams, moving water, and electrical currents. The shifting skyline and ritualistic soundscape weave together a surreal, distant dream that submerges the audience in a misty realm in between sleep and awakeness. This immersive installation explores sensory perception and unveils layers of consciousness.

Bio

Gladys Lou is a Hong Kong-Canadian artist and curator with an HBA in Art & Art History and Psychology from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College. Her practice utilizes experimental media and new technologies, including video, sound, photography, and new media, to challenge the boundaries of sensory perception. 

Lou’s art has been exhibited at InterAccess, Workman Arts, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Blackwood Gallery, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante. She was awarded the first prize at Video Fever 2023 by Trinity Square Video, Vtape, and Images Festival. 

Caitlin Chan: That’s not quite how I remember it!, Sound, 2 min, 2023

Description of Work:  

This piece explores how the game of MahJong can be used to continue familial traditions in the city wherein I have none. By distorting the key sounds found in a round of MahJong, this piece seeks to highlight how the joys of the game can be disconnected, replicated, and transfigured entirely when it is being played without those whom I initially learned the game from. As someone who's lived diasporic experiences have been fairly low-key, through this diastories soundscape I wanted to portray a non-traumatic diasporic narrative.

Bio

Caitlin Chan is an artist who is a recent settler of Tkaronto via the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She is 2.5 generation Chinese-Canadian. She is interested in the relationship between how we mediate through cities and how that affects the way we communicate/participate in media. 

5. Matthew Shu Pi: Next Time It'll Be Easier To Find, Video, 12:43 min, 2023

Description of Work:

A compilation of travel videos, rescued home footage, and archived internet media that explores themes of death and immigrant subcultures in Surrey, BC. Most of the footage takes place in Changde, Hunan Province, and Surrey.

Bio

Matthew Shu Pi makes experimental art on ideas of memory and is heavily influenced by his upbringing in Surrey and East Vancouver.

2. Meena Rizwan: Echoes of Belonging, Sound, 12 min, 2023

Description of Work

Echoes of Belonging is an experimental soundscape and auditory exploration into the artist’s diasporic narrative. The composition captures the essence of moments in her life, illuminating the relentless pursuit of a sense of home and granting the audience an intimate immersion into diverse geographies spanning from Pakistan to Tkaronto. Each sound becomes a node in the broader network of the artist’s life, creating a sonic landscape that mirrors the intricate layers of an identity forged amidst migration and ever-shifting borders. It is a cathartic release of fragmented memories, guiding the audience through a visceral journey of  the emotional highs and lows, moments of jubilation and connection, and instances of despair and displacement that have shaped the artist’s trajectory. This sonic memoir extends an invitation for the audience to confront the nuanced challenges embedded in diasporic existence, encouraging reflection on their own connections and displacements as integral elements in the shaping of personal identity and sense of belonging.

Bio

Meena Rizwan (she/ her) is a Pakistani-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose work aims to challenge prevailing ontological and relational narratives by actively inviting individuals to explore realms of connection, play, metamorphosis, and (un)certainty. Her practice involves interactive installations, projection, sound, film, electronics, woodwork, metalwork, web design, photography, and performance. Her recent work has probed notions around racial identity, monstrosity, and grief and has been exhibited at Doors Open Toronto, 187, and Artscape. She has a Master of Arts degree in Gender Studies, an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, and certifications in Data Analytics, Carpentry, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

9. Beau Gomez: you’re here too, Virtual Reality, 2022

Description of Work

These memory spaces are an extension of a larger body of work entitled ‘You’re here too’, a mixed-media project that unveils varying nuances of queer Filipinx and Asian experience, grounded in intimacy and shared introspection. Through still and moving portraits, and recorded conversations, this work is an act of shared storytelling, evoking immediacy and tenderness through its course between moments of joy, solitude, and peace, as much as the exchange is rooted in resilience and resolution.

My practice at its core embraces image-making and storytelling as a conduit between one person’s experiences to another, and reinforcing empathy in its way. ‘You’re here, too’ marks a meaningful juncture to hold space, to build community and belonging, and to encourage bearing witness and mutual care, however intimate or urgent they may come.

Bio

Beau Gomez is a Filipino-Canadian visual artist based in Toronto and Montréal. His practice is informed by ideas, challenges and conversations around cross-cultural narratives, as they relate to positions of queerness and community. A portraitist at heart, his work is anchored by image-making and storytelling as conduits between one person’s experiences to another, giving permission to shared means of reckoning, reconditioning, and nurturing.

11. Bryan Hong: Nights at Canton, Virtual Reality, 2021

Description of Work

This project is a personal reflection on Canton Chilli, a Chinese restaurant beloved by many for their cheap and generous portions of greasy Chinese food. Whether it’s after a late-night out drinking with friends or a late-night in studying at the library, I could always count on Canton on my trip home in the early hours of the night. I captured the storefront of Canton Chilli—they have recently renovated their interior so it now looks much more polished and sleek. Peeking inside the windows, I can still remember the many times spent here eating, chatting, and laughing. In my mind, the mint green walls are tiled with drawings and messages on printer paper, each expressing their adoration for the restaurant. We’d point out ones that we found funny between bites of chow mein and chilli chicken. I also documented a recent meal I ordered for takeout to walk through how you can make your own memory at Canton Chilli. In the background, you can hear a recording of the ambient noise heard on a Spadina evening.

Sources: Images of the old interior of the restaurant are taken by Calin Alexander (May 2018) and Shamim Imtiaz (April 2017) from the Google Maps profile of Canton Chilli.

Bio

Bryan Hong is a second generation Chinese-Canadian scientist and artist, born and raised in Toronto. He enjoys experimenting with code, data, 3D modelling, text, sound, and images. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto researching the cognitive neuroscience of memory and aging.He is interested in investigating the connections between the constituent elements of our memories, whether that includes the people, noises, objects, smells, or emotions present. Specifically, he wants to explore how these relationships come together to transport us back to a particular space, time, and feeling.

6. Jeanette Kong: A New Reality, Virtual Reality, 2021

Description of Work

For my memory space, I created an interactive documentary about my family’s immigrant journey from Jamaica to Canada and our first experience dining in Toronto’s original Chinatown. I experimented using photogrammetry to capture the original location of Sai Woo Restaurant back in 1974, which is today a yoga studio. I also used this technique to document the candies I first enjoyed in the restaurant. The backdrop is a 360-degree image taken at the address of Sai Woo Restaurant using Google Earth. Two-dimensional personal objects from the trip and a restaurant menu are displayed amid the 3D images.

Bio

Jeanette Kong is a documentary producer and award-winning director. Her filmmaking practice centres around exploring the historical intersection of culture between Hakka Chinese and Jamaicans. Her films include A Brief Record of My Father’s Time at Sea, Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, Half: The Story of a Chinese-Jamaican Son and The Chiney Shop. They screened at many international film festivals and museums including ReelWorld Film Festival, Beijing Caribbean Film Festival, Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, Art Gallery of Mississauga and Penn Museum.

7. Joshua Lue Chee Kong: My Mother’s Village (鹿湖坝), Virtual Reality, 2021

Description of Work

My collaboration with Future Through Memory is a tribute to my ancestors, my family, and the Hakka community. For this tribute, I created a virtual landscape of my mother’s Hakka village of 鹿湖坝 (Lù hú bà) in Guangdong province, China. The village was produced with photogrammetry using archival photos of my last visit to the village in 2015 as part of my journey of learning more about my Hakka ancestry. In my mother’s village, you will explore locations with strong ties to my family history, visiting the family’s ancestral hall and the family tomb located on a hill overlooking the village. In the background, you will hear my mother speaking in Hakka reading from the Zapu 家譜 recounting her family history. I never imagined that six years later I will be visiting my mother’s village in the virtual space, especially during a pandemic when travel is limited. I want to thank Lilian for giving me this opportunity to be united with my mother, her village, and the ancestors.

Bio

Joshua Lue Chee Kong (b. 1988) is an interdisciplinary artist, archivist and researcher from Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. His work focuses on Caribbean narratives around creolization and the way it has shaped the social fabric of the Caribbean region. He studied at Savannah College of Art and Design where he received his BFA in graphic design and his MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies of Art, Media and Design from OCAD University. Joshua has participated in artist residencies at Red Gate Gallery, Beijing in 2015 and at Vermont Studio Centre, Vermont in 2017. At Medulla Art Gallery, Trinidad, he has had two solo exhibitions titled Moulded Memories in 2014 and Paradise in 2016. His work had been published in Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, ANNO book, See Me Here: A Survey of Contemporary Self-Portraits from the Caribbean, The Draconion Switch e-magazine and two of his photographic images appeared on the cover of the August 2012 TIME magazine.

8. Lilian Leung: Have You Eaten Yet?, Virtual Reality, 2021

Description of Work

For the past year, a lot of my attention has been focused on food. Food. Meal after meal. And its given me time to reflect on my relation to my own Cantonese culture and thinking about how we like to greet each other by asking “Have you eaten yet?”

My relationship with Chinatowns has always been about food. No matter where we’d travel, my parents would always make a point of spending a night to find a Chinese restaurant (usual in Chinatown) to have a family meal. Now on my own, I connect to Toronto’s Chinatown the most through food as well. My relationships with people have developed over dinners on Spadina, as well as learning to cook new and familiar dishes with my roommate.

The narrow aisles of the grocery store remind me of shopping with my grandma in Hong Kong, or weekly trips with my parents growing up. The ambient sounds of a language I understand, but also rarely speak. Now, it’s a place where I try to reconnect with my family while apart. I cook things I’ve had all my life but never learned or tried to make. Egg tarts. Congee. Curry. Steamed Fish. That soup I’ve always seen on the stovetop, but never quite knew the name until now.

Bio

A second generation Chinese-Canadian, Lilian Leung is a designer, artist, and community-based researcher. Their current practice circles new and evolving methods of placemaking and placekeeping in virtual reality, trans- and postmedia practices, and interactive documentary.

10. Marie Sotto: Malvern Mall, Virtual Reality, 2022

Description of Work

This project was made in commemoration of Malvern Mall in Scarborough slated to be torn down. To members of the Malvern community, Malvern Mall is a vital community hub, a gathering place. It is one of the very few places where elders can come together and share a conversation over coffee in the food court and exercise on walks around the mall. It is one of the few remaining after school spots for youth, a place where hard working shop owners still remain. It is a landmark for many. This project aims to preserve this cultural landmark in virtual space in the midst of the rapid redevelopment taking place in the area with the hope that some will remember and that the spirit of the Malvern community remains. 

Bio

Marie Sotto is a Filipinx Futurist, Art Witch and Storyteller. A Scarborough born visual artist, Marie grew up in the Malvern area. Now based in Toronto Marie has exhibited work at Artscape Youngplace (2015), The Gladstone Hotel (2016) and The Harbourfront Center (2019). Marie recently graduated from NEWVIEW XR’s first Toronto School. Through digital storytelling and emerging technologies, Marie explores meanings of home, memory and belonging. Marie continuously finds inspiration in the faces and places they call home.