But really, where are you from?

Opening : Friday June 1st, 2018 at 5pm

Through a subversion of everyday objects that makes them non-functional, Florence Yee illustrates the challenges faced by members of ethno-cultural communities as they navigate between their identity, which is contemporary North American, and a sort of authenticity that Canadian society seems to expect. In a similar vein, Yee fabricates artificial nostalgia in photo albums made of images found online through Google Street View, thereby subverting a way in which we construct our perception of others.

Florence Yee expresses the ambivalence felt by the offspring of second and third-generation immigrants, caught between the conflicting influences of the traditional cultural heritage transmitted by their parents and the realities of their North American life. Her body of work recognizes the need to establish identity on a common ground provided by the present experience of the community’s members, rather than past glories of the mother country.

“But really, where are you from?” That is the question that Florence Yee deconstructs in her exhibition. In contrast to commoditized Cantonese culture crystallized in preset representations (typical objects, Chinatowns and other facades of identity), the artist re‑appropriates codes that are specific to Asian culture and thereby aspires to a rewriting of the history of its diaspora.