Negotiating Culture

Juried Group Exhibition

2024​

Curator: Soheila Esfahani

City of Kitchener
 

The “Names” project is premised on the practice that when a Chinese person comes to Canada, their official name is written in the English alphabet, but is based on Chinese phonetics. Although consisting of English letters, this name is usually meaningless and unfamiliar in the English language, and its original pronunciation is typically lost. In Chinese culture, as well as in many others, a person’s first name conveys a multitude of meanings, including references to ancestors, birthplace, and ethnic, cultural, and historical information. The translated names often subvert these meanings, leaving only partially similar phonetic details; nevertheless, these altered names appear on all formal documents in Canada. In fact, for Chinese diasporic communities, choosing an English name as a preferred name at school and in the workplace has been a common practice, with this English name contributing to a person’s identity in the new cultural environment. The pair of names (translated official name and preferred English name) forms a hybrid identity, and naming becomes a negotiating strategy between the two cultures.

The minimalist style is adopted to draw the viewer’s attention to the names only. This artwork contributes to an understanding of cultural negotiations and the formation of hybrid identities within the context of diasporic experiences. 

The exhibition will be travelling to Martin Luther University College at Wilfred Laurier University in December and January 2025.   

The project has received a 2024 Visual Artist Project Creation Grant from the Ontario Arts Council.