Identity

Ji Hyang Ryu’s Culture Bridge

Ji Hyang Ryu has a warm and excitable personality that is reflected in her studio space in Riverview, New Brunswick. She welcomes me into a room resplendent with plants, books, and used canvases. She makes us coffee and begins sharing her story of what brought her from South Korea to Canada. Ryu has been interested...

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Tropical Gothic

Tropical Gothic is an exhibition curated by Excel Garay and Liuba González de Armas at the Khyber Center for the Arts (January 31 – February 11, 2023), which features the works of Cinthia Arias Auz, Kayza DeGraff-Ford, Carmel Farahbakhsh, Shaya Ishaq, Pamela Juarez, Marissa Sean Cruz, and Excel Garay. The group exhibition draws inspiration from...

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Listening to Silence

"What Carries Us" at The Rooms

What does it mean to revisit the stories we’ve been told, the stories that purport to tell us who we are? And why might we do so in the first place? This is the premise that underpins What Carries Us: Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic, an exhibition curated by Toronto-based artist, curator, and...

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All These In-betweens

Logan MacDonald on how to reclaim what has been lost

MacDonald tells me that “this work is sad. It is about contemporary mourning and historical mourning, but it is also a call to action and to empathy.” In these betweens there is also a generative tension that illuminates hope and possibility.

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Re-discovering Indigenous Identities

The impact of the Identify Festival

To “identify” is to name something and render it visible, even if it may have been present all along. Organized by Eastern Edge Gallery, the Identify festival facilitates the gathering and sharing of traditional and contemporary artistic and cultural practices of Indigenous peoples in Newfoundland and Labrador including Mi’kmaq, Inuit, Innu, Southern Inuit of Nunatukavut...

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JJ Lee’s Hyphenated Realities

Exploring Chinese-Canadian identities through the lens of "Chinese Food"

*This article appeared in the Summer 2018 Visual Arts News’ Special 40th Anniversary Issue Driving down the Bedford Highway in Halifax, you pass signs for China Town restaurant—a Nova Scotian behemoth dating back to the 70s, with that kitschy “Chinese-style” font in huge fire-engine red letters across faux panelling that you can’t miss. Artist JJ Lee’s...

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Redessiner les marges

Mario Doucette et l’identité acadienne vue de l’extérieur

Nous avons seulement eu une perspective de notre histoire, c’est la perspective des British. Les livres d’histoire ont été écrits d’après leurs témoignages.

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Redrawing the Margins

Mario Doucette + the Acadians as outsiders

"In my paintings I highlight heroes that people should know who we don’t learn about in school. We didn’t know that there was an Acadian resistance."

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Indigenous artists vs. Paul Kane’s controversial legacy

Exploring depictions of indigenous people in art history archives

Visual Arts News' research intern explores the legacy of two NFB films from the '70s—One film portrayed Indigenous people in visual art, while the other depicted Indigenous people as visual art.

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The myth of home

Jerry Ropson’s powerful exploration of loss

Jerry Ropson’s to kiss a goat between the horns is a memorial to a cultural vernacular and way of life that has already left us—his grandfather's rural Newfoundland culture.

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Amery Sandford

Amery Sandford: Master of ceremonies

Exploring our complex relationship with Newfoundland identity

Amery Sandford draws upon the history of touristic paraphernalia, such as postcards and brochures from the early 20th Century that depicted North America as a pristine escape from the cultural and economic troubles of one’s homeland—a new frontier.

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Marigold Santos’ hybrid selves

The otherworldly magic of Filipina/Canadian artist Marigold Santos

Inspired by the terrifying tales of mythical monsters she connected with as a child, Marigold Santos unravels her memories and experiences to form her own personal myths, inspiring viewers to do the same.

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