Wildflower in the Garden
Adobe Photoshop, 2022.
This illustration speaks on the experiences and challenges of navigating dating, relationships, sexuality and fetishization as an Asian person. Using the lush, elusive Asian jungle as a backdrop and metaphor for the wonderful yet ruthless nature of the dating scene, the piece is an introspective and surreal view of an Asian girl’s fears and desires converging and taking shape.
Created for here-there collective and here-there listening room, the 2022 exhibition held at Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto, Canada.
The piece is a visual response to here-there's sixth audio recording of an anonymous 22 year old Chinese-Canadian answering the question: How does your relationship with your identity affect your relationship with your own sexuality?
Visit here-there.ca to hear the audio.
About the project:
Founded by here-there collective, a group of interdisciplinary artists of the Asian Canadian diaspora, here-there is an audio library of stories shared by anonymous individuals identifying as Asian Canadian. Detailing the nuances in their lived experiences, each speaker begins their story by answering a question and ends it with them passing on another question to the next anonymous speaker. In the summer of 2022, the digital library was shared in an in-person exhibition entitled here-there listening room held at Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto, Canada. A free newspaper takeaway was created for the exhibition, showcasing 19 stories along with illustrations by Toronto artists Brian Jiang, Lilian Sim and Thamara Perera that each respond to a specific recording. Learn more about the project here.
Picture provided by here-there collective.