Artists Panel on Chinatown's Influence on Art and Culture | Councillor Jennifer Rice with Yong Fei Guan, Kev Liang, and Shawn Tse

In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, join Councillor Jennifer Rice and artists Yong Fei Guan, Kev Liang and Shawn Tse for an Artists Panel on Chinatown's Influence on Art and Culture:

Thursday, May 18, 7-8:30 pm

At the event, artists will share how their Asian heritage and connection to Edmonton's Chinatown inform their practice. Through this panel, we hope to further the dialogue about race, heritage and culture in Canada while showcasing the unique perspectives of three compelling contemporary artists.

This in-person program will take place in the Main Hall at the Art Gallery of Alberta and will last slightly over an hour, with a Q&A at the end of the program. Treats and tea will be served.

This event is included in admission: $10 for adults, $7 for ages 65+ and free for ages under 18, Alberta students and AGA Members. 

We thank the Chinatown Transformation Collaborative Edmonton (CTC Edmonton) for partnering with us on this event.

About the Panelists

Jennifer Rice | Elected to Edmonton City Council in 2021, Jennifer Rice is among the first visible minority women on City Council in Edmonton’s history. Jennifer is a resident of Edmonton Ward Ipiihkoohkanipiaohtsi. Jennifer brings to City Council her professional qualifications and passion for serving the community. She is a former university professor with international academic experience specializing in mathematics and higher education, plus hands-on experience working in government business operations. She has held several leadership roles at the provincial government level, ranging from managing financial and project management reporting on large public infrastructure budgets to working with community-based organizations in serving community and family safety initiatives and homeless prevention programs. Jennifer has experience with results-based budgeting and evaluating the performance and efficiency of government policy and programs to ensure public accountability. She has volunteered for multiple community efforts, including programs related to community services, cross-cultural awareness, parenting, and welcoming newcomers.

Yong Fei Guan | Yong Fei Guan is a Chinese Canadian artist-researcher completing a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta. Guan explores multicultural identity, politics and their relationship to environmental issues in her work. She has been involved in public and community art projects including 塑胶狮 Su Jiao Shi and 金猪 Golden Pig, in which the artist create public art installations made from plastic waste diverted from the landfill. Guan is currently researching an eco-art project regarding local gojis as well as their migration history. Learn more about Yong Fei Guan here.

Kev Liang | Kev Liang is an emerging multidisciplinary artist residing in Edmonton (amiskwaciwaskihikan), Treaty 6 territory. After earning his BFA in Printmaking and Intermedia with Distinction from the University of Alberta in 2021, Kev continues to tackle his homo/queer, diasporic 2nd-gen Chinese-Canadian identity and the existential anxieties of lineage and prosperity within the Anthropocene. Using print-based repetition of food-related emblems such as rice bowls, chopsticks, and gritty family-owned woks alongside long-lasting yet ephemeral synthetic materiality, he reflects on the incessant act of self-digestion while also finding alternative modes of care and resistance as a queer body when it comes to fighting blood-related angst such as achieving procreation and so-called prosperity for future generations. In relation to his practice, Kev has been interested in community-based artistic approaches concerning the idea of Chinatown as well as the concept of residing in "oil country" - the idea of being in our laborious and demanding timeframe of late-stage capitalism and the potential loss of heritage that is at stake

Shawn Tse | Shawn Tse 謝兆龍 (he/him) is a father, artist, filmmaker, and community organizer. He works with equity-deserving communities primarily through documentaries to share their stories of community care. He strives to live, work, and play in a relational way and seeks less extractive methods to engage community and nature. He is a consultant for the CanAsian Arts Network, a national digital platform supporting Asian Canadian artists, an actor and coordinator for Third Space Playback Theatre, committed to creating BIPoC spaces of dialogue for community change and social justice, a member of aiya哎呀, a collective creating spaces to remember the emotional and geographic loss of ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ | amiskwacîwâskahikan | Edmonton’s Chinatown, and co-organizer of Chinatown Greetings, an arts-based fundraising platform exploring ways to build relationships between the artist and Chinatown community. 

The Artists Panel is part of the AGA's Asian Heritage Month Program, which includes a series of film screenings.