Intro

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borderline the 2020 biennial of contemporary art opens at your aga

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and raymie modern this fall the exhibition at your aga is presented by atb financial

Background

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hi um thanks for joining us my name is lindsay sharman i am the curator of the

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art gallery of alberta standing out front of the gallery now you can see it there behind me

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uh and today i’m going to be talking with grace law and shaun c two members of the aya collective i was

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selected to be in the 2020 biennial of contemporary art entitled border line that will be

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opening at the aga and the rainbow modern at the end of september

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the biennial is an exhibition that happens every two years and looks at contemporary art

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in alberta up until this year the biennial looked at

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alberta and alberta artists and those that are working within alberta’s provincial borders this year

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rather than looking at that strict geographical boundary the biennial instead focused on the

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territorial borders of the numbered treaty regions to also open

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a conceptual conversation around borders which are prioritized and what it means

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to cross them challenge them or be in proximity to them the art gallery of alberta situated on

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treaty six as is our partner institution raymie modern

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the aj is also in edmonton and is on the traditional land of diverse indigenous peoples including cree

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blackfoot metis nakota sioux iroquois dene and ojibwe soto anishnabe

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and to further situate the aga we’re also just minutes from chinatown grace we’re going to be

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talking to today is actually just down the street from me at the former site of edmonton’s

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chinatown gates and i am on my way now taking the very short walk

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from the aga to go meet her aya was selected by the four biennial

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curators myself francesca hebert spence felicia gay

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and sandra fraser because of their interest in the borders of edmonton’s chinatown

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their interest in the barriers to participation in public space you’ll probably see around me there’s

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tons of construction going on right now and a part of this construction is the

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building of a new lrt line that construction also unfortunately

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resulted in the city of edmonton dismantling and moving the harbin gate that once

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marked the entrance into chinatown aya formed out of that

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and with the goal uh to encourage conversation around that move to imagine and

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reimagine what the gate and what chinatown could be and respond to the cultural erasure and

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displacement of chinatown and to create space for radical dialogue

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among the asian diaspora so sean and grace who will be talking to

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you today sean is a chinese canadian filmmaker artist and educator passionate about community

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storytelling and social change he recently led a heritage art project

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figure one two three six eight using chinese ink paintings audio

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and film to tell edmonton chinatown stories and as the creator of the

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intergenerational cooking show seconds please gracelaw is a visual

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artist community organizer and cultural labor who often works in public space

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she was born and raised in edmonton and now calls chinatown home so i’m actually just across the street

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from grace now grace is going to tell us more about the collective the work that they do

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and what is important about the spot that we’re now both standing on

aiya

5:51

thanks lindsay hi i’m grace i’m part of aya and the reason why aya formed is because

5:58

of the removal of the harbin gates the harbin gate is edmonton’s chinatown

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gate and it’s an icon over chinatown and it was removed on a very late and

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very cold november in 2017. the day after the removal i remember

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standing at this very spot and looked at the vastness the new vastness of the space

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and felt a heavy weight of emptiness and i asked myself what is the role of the artist and how

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are artists supposed to respond so quickly i have formed i knew my

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memory was short and i wanted to honor the sight before i forgot this

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feeling of loss and so there are four of us who are core to

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the aya collective and some friends join in when they can there is lan chan marples who is a

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historian and wyling london who’s a teacher and both of them are long-standing chinatown community

7:04

members and there’s shawn and i who are trained as artists and together we make

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spaces for our community to remember and dream about what chinatown means today

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so let’s see where hi there i’m shawn i’m part of aya

shawn

7:24

and i’m on the lrt line capital line going north heading towards

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colosseum station to visit the harbin gate in storage

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usually when i go i visit by car or bike so this is actually my very first time

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going on the train and i’ve heard that the

7:48

view of the actual gate in storage is quite clear and so i’m quite excited to to check it

7:56

out this way and uh yeah show you guys what it looks like and how to get there um

8:04

yeah so let me just swap the view so that you guys can see what it looks like

harbin gate

8:13

so in our ayah projects we uh reference the harbin gate and the removal and

8:20

so often we’re asked what is the state of the gate now where is it and so

8:28

yeah this is uh this is coliseum station coming right up and so i’m i’m excited

8:34

to show everyone exactly where it is how to get to it

8:41

yeah oh i think i see it so

8:47

let’s see how clear of a view we get

8:55

all right there it is right there the orange rooftop

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so we’re gonna head towards that area

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yeah yeah so very very clear view actually um

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over there you know basically all the pieces of the harbin gate were were dismantled

9:23

and and put over there so obviously it’s not as high because uh a lot of the pillars that uh hoisted it

9:30

up were also you know part of that set over there and alongside there’s

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you know the lions we’re here now at coliseum station

coliseum

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and you can see we’re we’re at the transit center entrance or exit

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and we’re actually just in front of the bus terminus and we’re

9:53

gonna actually you know kind of go uh past the bus terminus and take a left uh past the the large

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road and then you see this amp tech building that building

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behind it is the storage site so we’re just gonna make our way over there and while we do that let’s uh jump onto

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the call with uh lindsay and grace and see where they’re at hey lindsay hey lindsay and grace

Canada Place

10:21

hey sean how’s it going hi uh thank you both for

10:29

joining us it’s great yeah thanks thank you for getting us yeah so to just i just kind of want to

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like get a sense of kind of where everybody is uh sean you’re quite far

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from us um but to just kind of situate us i’m gonna switch

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i can figure out how to switch my camera around there we go um so just down for me

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there’s jasper uh here i am in front of canada place um and down the street

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you can see see her give us a wave grace okay lindsay

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um yeah so i’m on the the site where um the new gate will be uh grace is on the

11:22

side where the old gate will be um and sean’s on the way to go see

11:28

the former gate in storage um so first up um i wonder if the both of

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you could just tell us a little bit about what does it mean to you to have the entry and therefore

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borders of chinatown change and what effect does that have on

11:47

chinatown uh yeah for me well traditionally

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chinatown gates serve as an entryway into chinatown so

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with the new gate situated 90 degrees and a block south

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it serves a new function it will serve as a memorial to the former chinatown where

12:14

canada place is now situated and so what does that say to us as a community

12:20

when our chinatown gate and icon of chinatown serves as a function so there’s a

12:26

different function serves as a memorial because to me chinatown is still a

12:32

living community and it’s not something to museum museum

12:38

apply and so that move that plan that tells me how

12:47

the study planners value our community and

12:54

it’s kind of a foreshadow of what may happen to our community

13:08

yeah no i think uh grace uh shawn did you have anything to add

13:13

yeah i you know i think yeah grace um you know mentioned a lot of uh yeah

13:20

really important things there um i think in terms of like the historical context

13:26

it’s interesting to me like not just studying uh edmonton’s chinatown but other

13:32

chinatowns as well that um it seems like there’s no consistency

13:38

when it comes to what the gate is i mean i think it’s symbolic more than it is

13:43

actually uh representative of like the starting

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of you know the border you know per se um i mean the the old gate the old gate

13:58

in a sense was on you know a long 97 and now the new gate is close but

14:06

it’s uh directly on 97 so it i mean sorry like the old gate was

14:14

a long 97 but uh facing uh 102.

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and so yeah so the the the chain the change of things um aren’t

14:28

necessarily uh reflective of you know the border of

14:34

like the true chinatown and if we’re talking about like the the current status of um that area

14:42

which is technically not even named chinatown right now so where you guys are um it’s currently in the process of

14:49

being called the quarters um a gate over there actually symbolizes

14:56

basically an entryway to the quarters so it’s not even um from the city standpoint uh going to

15:03

be documented as chinatown you know possibly in the future so that’s going to be interesting with the

15:10

new gate going up because i think from you know a city standpoint you’re just gonna be like

15:16

why is this area called the quarters when there’s clearly a lot of uh you know chinese

15:23

looking monuments around right so

15:29

and i guess how can you expand maybe on like that idea of naming um

15:36

and kind of your thoughts on like what does it mean to name something who gets to name

15:42

something and and what do those names kind of identify and and mean for

15:48

[Music] you

15:54

um so i mean for me i’m pretty like i’ve only started to

16:01

become more aware of city planning uh in the last

16:06

probably two and a half years so it’s still relatively new to me about the processes and even like naming

16:13

itself is a very specific type of city planning process and i’m starting to get to know a little

16:20

more here and there but i can’t at all fully wrap my head around how

16:25

how it works and so yeah from that standpoint it’s just kind of like

16:30

i’m i don’t work within the city and i don’t really you know so i’m just trying to get my

16:36

head around it and uh yeah i can’t really say too much from that

16:41

that part but in terms of naming for me i think i think as a cultural you know i

16:48

i consider myself chinese canadian um like that title and my chinese name

16:54

for example they’re they’re very important to me because they’re part of my identity and they’re part of

17:00

who i am so when i hear about uh south china town being renamed the

17:06

quarters as an official title it it saddens me because

17:13

i think that that area and what it means to the community that

17:18

essentially built it from the ground up um you know uh officially won’t

17:24

have a name for a lot of the really important work that they did for the

17:30

the the community so yeah yeah and i think like moving the

17:36

chinatown gate and renaming neighborhoods um i think it’s

17:41

it indicates what’s important to the city and what’s valuable and i think with the

17:48

quarters um the the motive is to you know uplift this

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community and in a way that is beneficial for the city without acknowledging the existing

18:03

community so renaming a neighborhood

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it erases the memory of the neighborhood and that and the identity of the neighborhood

18:16

and it also um it just speaks to the future of where the city wants to go

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and to me that that’s threatening as a as a person growing up in edmonton as a

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chinese canadian growing up in edmonton um that is a gesture that for me

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means that maybe my identity and culture isn’t really valuable

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in this neighborhood

18:50

so the one thing you do with the collective um

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right so it’s kind of hoping to change at their own surroundings um so what do you hope that that i

19:08

can do to encourage a rethinking a public space for the chinatown

19:15

community yeah i think

19:22

i think as artists and as people who identify as chinese

19:29

canadians i think we’re using like the skills that we have and the um

19:36

and the privileges that we have um to make space in public for our

19:42

community to remember to mourn to celebrate um and and with with our

19:50

work with our work that happens in public space and and happens in community it’s our hope

19:56

is to create spaces of dialogue and conversations so that um yeah

20:04

so that we can come along with our community that’s important to me to us um to kind of think about

20:13

what the future means for us together because chinatown chinatown today means something

20:20

different than 100 years ago and so there’s a need for a reimagining of our future and

20:29

how our future is alongside a very diverse uh

20:34

people groups what about ushan what do you think

20:40

what do you think is gaia’s role um i think in terms of public space i

20:47

mean i’m out here there’s a fence in front of me i’m on a public cycling

20:55

track right and i’ve kind of did like a loop around or just like uh kind of a circle around a bit

21:00

of the the site so you can see you can see it in the in over there and

21:07

one of the interesting things is like people that know that we do work uh around the harbin gate they’ve

21:13

mentioned oh you know it’s really sad seeing that uh the the gate in storage

21:19

like that right like every time they pass the pass by lrt or if you bike over um

21:26

and i mean i mean it’s outdoor in the facility so it i mean right now you can see like this is a

21:33

this is a site for the lrt just to store things and and the city to store things

21:39

and so you see basically just a area to i don’t know i

21:44

mean if you look at it it just looks like yeah just throw your things over there you know like this is storage area just

21:51

put it over there right and so um that within the context of you know

21:57

this gate that’s in limbo and or may not surface back into a

22:02

public space is uh it’s quite sad and so i understand why people

22:08

you know say that it is sad uh just sitting here i mean obviously it’s not gonna get damaged because it was always outside so

22:16

you know we’re not yeah we’re not necessarily like expecting oh that’s cool there’s a

22:23

there’s a friend um yeah so so yeah i i think i think

22:30

um um i think there’s lots to say in terms of

22:36

like our our role as people uh you know uh active citizens here

22:44

in edmonton and and and what we can kind of do in terms of public space and

22:50

and how how we build our cities so so you know this experience for me um

22:57

you know following the harbin gate has really given me a bit more of an understanding

23:03

of how you know we were mentioning naming how to be more involved in these kind of processes

23:08

and these these really i think important uh public ways that citizens can like

23:14

help inform how we shape our city so

23:24

yeah maybe you could just expand on that a little bit of maybe

23:29

what you think that like the role of citizens could be mm-hmm that’s a huge question i know

23:39

yeah i mean i’m still learning so much

23:44

i i think i think one thing that’s been really amazing um working with all the great folks that

23:50

i uh um and and the chinatown community members so not just chinese canadians

23:57

but uh all different uh you know diasporas and and you know we’re seeing also you know

24:04

uh more involvement in the indigenous community ochichi wants popping up in the quarters as well

24:09

and co-lab and so i i think i think that we’re starting to see even

24:15

though it’s the chinatown area there’s more support uh that isn’t limited to

24:21

just the chinese community uh working together you know and i think grace was kind of mentioning that how

24:28

you know historically you know when we even the word and it’s it’s a label that is

24:34

i would say even could be controversial because it indicates that this is an area just

24:40

for chinese canadians or or chinese people right but that that simply isn’t true and so

24:46

having a label like that um and trying to think of the future of chinatown where

24:53

it’s clearly you know very diverse um and and trying to find those unifying

25:00

projects and that solidarity between the groups i think that’s one of the things that i think i’m i’m

25:06

really interested within my own journey and uh and i think that’s exactly where

25:11

the work and eye is gonna go how are we as a community going to shape uh

25:19

what this chinatown is despite you know the the the possibly divisive label

25:26

of chinatown itself yeah yes i agree with you i

25:34

i think we can see that chinatown is there’s are there’s intricacies in our

Inner City

25:40

community like geographically and emotionally like this isn’t just chinatown this is

25:46

also the inner city and these are and and many people live here all

25:52

throughout history many people i lived in this in this space so

25:58

what does what does a um yeah what does

26:05

what’s like with these displacements of our of our community um

26:11

it feels it feels like we’re pushed away so what does a future look like where

26:17

we’re all heard and we’re all respected and public space is shared

26:22

without without having to um uh water down things

26:31

but actually like really value all of our unique um like uh strengths that we all bring

26:39

whether it’s like aesthetics or culture what does it look like what does like what does a diverse a strong healthy

26:46

equitable diverse community look like in public space and does that mean like i think that’s

26:53

really interesting when the biennial it’s called borders and orders are used to

26:59

they can use they can be used to protect or they can be used to divide and labels also do that too

27:07

and with and with the gate um it’s a complex thing because do do

27:13

the gates protect chinatown or do they limit chinatown and um yeah and so and

27:22

when we go past these gates and we see that it’s not just chinese organizations and community it’s

27:28

it’s a multiple of communities um what does that mean what does that

27:33

mean i think it’s hard i think it’s hard for me to imagine what an equitable and diverse community looks

27:40

like because i have no idea i just have no idea i think it’s easy

27:45

for me to like re-imagine what a chinatown community may look like because i can be nostalgic and put

27:52

and point towards what my answers ancestors might have done but i have no idea what a diverse equitable

28:01

public space and community looks like and i think i think it’s a worthy question too to imagine

28:10

and yeah i i think yeah i think that’s super interesting yeah to add to that

28:18

yeah no it’s okay i to add to that as well i think that you know the work that we’re doing could

28:25

be seen as subversive or to cause up um some more tension

28:31

um by you know the chinatown community and and even the city but uh that

28:38

you know certainly and i and i just you know for the record don’t wanna at all implicate that because i think

28:45

um you know we as citizens and i you know have the right to to be

28:51

involved and to be uh you know part of that and so i think a huge part of this work for me

28:58

is is learning about how i can be more involved and by doing some of this work

29:05

see how you know be essentially somewhat of a model to

29:11

how how neighborhoods can be shaped uh with my voice in mind right

29:16

and so i think that’s you know always been even the objective of like what cities want right like if we have more

29:23

input then more people get heard and so

29:29

and so yeah so the work and this entire process is just seeing how

29:35

um this can add to that you know alternative uh narrative that maybe the city and the

29:42

community haven’t heard and yeah i think that’s really important because

29:47

if we’re talking about like a lot of the goals which are like inclusion multiculturalism and

29:54

anti-racism even these terms you know currently they’re not

30:01

necessarily reflected in all the processes that we do and and so yeah how do we how do we

30:07

become uh accountable to more of those types of things

30:19

could you um just kind of maybe expand a little bit on um some of the projects and some of

30:26

the work um and activities that that aya has undertaken

30:32

yeah for sure so one of our first projects is here at the site and i’m going to

Projects

30:40

point to this site um we felt like we were grieving when the

30:46

harbin gate was removed and so we gathered memories and wishes

30:52

of um of the harvest of the harvard gate from the chinatown community and hung

30:58

them on the construction fence and in public space it was just a way for us

31:05

to remember that the harvard gate you know doesn’t exist physically but

31:11

emotionally it’s still in our memories and in our communities thoughts

31:16

um and yeah sean do you want to talk about another project

31:26

yeah so um we in oh man the time

31:33

the times and the years are like just completely past me right now but uh about over a year ago

31:40

uh we um were part of uh the newey blanche uh

31:47

nui blanche edmonton and so we actually set up uh yeah if you look at where

31:53

grace is kind of pointing on her screen in that parking lot in front of

31:59

um the windspeare it’s the windspear i think yeah and

32:06

yeah we set up a a public kind of event called the gentrification

32:13

party and so it’s right across from where the former site uh was and we kind of just really

32:21

wanted to use that as a place to allow the traffic of nui blanche

32:27

uh participants to to to know a bit more about what was

32:33

currently happening because you know uh right now if you look at the the street there’s

32:38

you know the nice new uh rail lines that are there that used to be all like bulldozers and

32:44

construction materials and so even at that point like over a year ago

32:50

it looked very different and so we really wanted to you know involve like people in um

32:58

uh at least like visualizing how uh we really cared about uh all the

33:05

changes that were happening and so having this kind of gentrification party and with with a a number of different

33:13

events like programmed events that were directly on that site uh we were able to

33:18

uh get some pretty interesting conversations and dialogues uh happening on site and i think

33:26

i think uh you know bring people’s attention a bit more to uh i you know what

33:33

the most common conversation is was the the contrast between um

33:40

high development and high living to to the homeless situation and uh

33:47

the urban um yeah the urban uh social services that

33:54

are over there so it really is i think one of the things that we know

33:59

we all know as edmontonians and as probably albertans that there is this really big uh

34:06

difference when we talk about rich and poor and class and and also race right like there is

34:12

some a lot of division there and so how um how does that also uh play into

34:20

these conversations of cultural erasure and uh you know gates being removed and

34:27

and whatnot so i think it it’s it’s very intersectional work um and yeah things that we are actively

34:34

exploring uh within our projects in the future

Ghost Plaque

34:39

and for the aga biennial lindsay

34:47

highlighted a ghost plaque site project so we’re working with the edmonton

34:52

historical board to um install a bronze plaque

34:57

to remember the original location of the harping gate

35:03

so that’s that’s the latest project and we’re really thankful to work with aga and lindsay on the

35:10

programming of the you know of the meaning and the context behind

35:16

this project yeah i wonder if we could just talk a

35:22

little bit more about the the work that you’re showing at the aga because i i think

35:27

[Music] that you know your your practice is not so much like a practice of

35:32

things um if you will like you know there’s there are things of course created

35:37

um and you are creating uh material culture um but it’s a lot of conversation and

35:44

space making and so maybe the both of you could just expand a little bit on you know what was the process like for

35:51

you in picking a work of art that is meant to

35:57

be sort of static in the gallery which you know maybe is not um totally representative of of course

36:04

like the so many different aspects of what your practice is mm-hmm yeah because we’ve been working

36:10

with public space uh for a while we were we had to think

36:16

about how our work would translate in a gallery and with the plaque

36:21

we were really aware of how museums and galleries can

36:27

colonialize objects and especially with an object like a plaque

36:32

i know i was worried about how it would be presented in the gallery and and i was a little bit worried about

36:39

people thinking that that plaque itself is in artwork but that’s not the artwork

36:44

and that led me to questions of what is the artwork and are we are we even making art and does

36:50

that even matter and um yeah so those are those are the questions that we were

36:57

working through and still work through um i mean the question always is what is

37:03

the role of the artist in this context um and sometimes i think maybe making art

37:11

in the traditional sense might not be the best way to address things but um yeah i think it’s a really

37:19

interesting question to keep wrestling through and and um yeah yeah so those are some of my ideas

37:31

yeah no grace has got me like really thinking about it as well because um

37:39

you know along with the plaque uh we’re we’re gonna have a series of of

37:44

programs um like community programs that uh you know we’re gonna try to direct

37:51

people that do that that see the the plaque to to invite them to come out and kind

37:59

of join us in in the community on a few different kind of uh tours around chinatown and and learn

38:05

a bit more and so um you know that that that is uh one of the hopes in terms of

38:12

uh really kind of uh showing the work that we do um as artists and and how you know as

38:19

artists like sometimes we think uh that there has there

38:25

there’s a link between a concrete object right and so um a huge part in grace mentioned this

38:32

as well is the fact that uh so much of what we’re informed by

38:37

is actually through uh what the community and public space and how we interact together uh to

38:44

create uh so so yeah like that in itself um in terms of like inviting uh aga

38:52

people participants that are are there that see our work uh we really hope that they can be involved

38:58

uh within that process as well because especially if they’re edmontonians and they and they’re

39:03

interested in the shaping of what chinatown looks like that that’s essentially uh

39:10

at the heart of a lot of what we’re talking about in terms of uh being able to as citizens like

39:18

shape uh you know our lands and and and uh meet our neighbors and build

39:23

better relationships um so yeah we’re just having a little

39:31

bit of technical problems grace’s phone has just died um

39:37

but i think that this also could be a nice way to

39:49

a nice point to sort of wrath grace neither of you wanted to add about

39:58

about your work um or any sort of uh final comments that you wanted to do

40:05

i was gonna say that was that that was so planned like look at it it’s like perfect maybe grace you can okay

40:15

yeah thank you um no i don’t i don’t have anything i’m just really grateful for making this

40:22

space lindsay

40:29

shawn did you have uh anything you wanted to add before we say

40:36

goodbye thank you everybody out there watching and uh thanks to the aga

40:42

and um yeah the chinatown community uh all our supporters um we

40:49

are like truly yeah very very uh grateful and privileged to have

40:55

all the opportunities to be able to you know work here and so yeah hope to see you around

41:02

in chinatown and and yeah yeah

41:09

all right well thank you to both of you so much i’m so excited to be showing your

41:18

work in the biennial and you can see that at the aga come the end of september

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