Gallery exhibit
Kimberly Ho, Sauha Lee
Throughout May, Morrow’s gallery is home to a spill (or triptych) of shrines. Kimberly Ho installs an altar from their repertoire and Sauha Lee creates a shrine from repurposed items. Additionally, we’ll have a tea shrine where ahmm guests can sample free tea.
Many parts ready-made, this micro-exhibit will co-exist beside ahmm’s Asian Confectionery: an assortment of iconic (and obscure) Asian snacks, sundries, books, vintage and artisanal items.
Kimberly Ho’s shrine tou saang zhu 土生豬 is a visual exploration of the phenomena of sinofuturism and boba liberalism, as they play out in East Asian diasporas. These aesthetics and elements are brought together in tou saang zhu 土生豬, an altar upon which commodities are worshipped in place of deities, and respect is bestowed upon capitalism instead of the spirits of our Chinese ancestors.
Sauha Lee intends to create a shrine that explores the way she confronts her heritage and ancestry. She often uses the term ‘ancestral catharsis’ as a way to describe this complexity. While this installation is about cultural curiosity, she seeks to expand her creative drive beyond the “Where am I from?” dialogue through the poetics of repurposed materials and found objects. The title for Sauha’s shrine, Your intentions walk towards you, is inspired by the lyric from the song “Poem of Dead Song” by Broadcast. In it there is a candle-like sculpture representing a deity; however, it is unclear what form this god takes. It is made with leftover candle ends gathered from her community.
Kimberly Ho 何文蔚 (all pronouns) is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and collaborator based on the unceded ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil-waututh peoples, known as Vancouver. Growing up in a working class immigrant family, Kimberly’s work is nourished by collaborative processes and organically aims to be non-hiecharcial. In their artistic practice, they seek to explore their Hakka diaspora through the physical body and food culture, framing new media as a dimension of queer futurisms, and immersive art as a site of liberation.
Sauha Lee (she/her) is the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents from Peru and Guangdong. She gratefully lives and works as an artist, designer, and horticulturist on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC, Canada. Sauha searches for ancestral catharsis through making. She is curious about adhoc constructions, the nature of manual labour, and envisioning a more livable and equitable future. Right now, Sauha is exploring natural fibres and textiles, local manufacturing and processing, and collaborative circular systems.
