Negotiating Culture

Reprise of Negotiating Culture at Martin Luther University College, Waterloo

Dec 2024 to Feb 2025

In case you missed this outstanding exhibition from local artists, Elizabeth Forest, Wen Li, Andrea Filliatrault, Nancy Peng, Barry Smilie and ManChoi Chow, and curated by Dr. Soheila Esfahani, this exhibition is available at Martin Luther University College, Bricker Ave, Waterloo, Ontario

Negotiating Culture at 44 Gaukel, Kitchener, ON

Artists featured: Michael ManChoi Chow, Andrea Filiatrault, Elizabeth Forrest, Wen Li, Nancy Peng, Barry Smylie

As the child of immigrant Chinese parents from Hong Kong, I was born there, grew up in Canada and now living here for over 60 years. As an adolescent, I was ‘negotiating culture’ without the intellectual understanding of what it was. Only much later, studying theology and social sciences did I learn the term that described my life experience.

‘Teacups of Belonging’

‘Sarcophagus’

“In a multicultural society such as Canada, many people live in-between cultures and inevitably participate in cultural translation.”

Soheila Esfahani, juror and curator

“This curatorial project asks artists to reflect on how they define culture and what it means to live in the third space and negotiate cultural variance. If artists are cultural producers, how do they represent culture in their work? What are some of the ways we connect to other cultures and possibly live in liminal or in-between spaces?”

Soheila Esfahani, juror and curator

Upon reflection, even now, I’m unsure I fully grasp the significance of learning to ‘negotiate culture’; it was survival, yearning for a sense of ‘belonging’. Being in the liminal space between familiar and uncharted territory can provoke fear of the unknown.Or it may lead to new possibilities otherwise overlooked.Being face to face with our inner fears about who we are, our strengths and vulnerabilities, even survival,can cause us to question the core of our identities, and doubt life’s meaning and purpose. Engaging with liminality is the launchpad to cross thresholds that lead to life beyond what is familiar.

I believe being in liminal spaces is a universal human experience, essential to adapting to change and experiencing growth, individual and communal. Art can draw us in, mirror life experiences to facilitate becoming more cognizant of and make choices for how we want to live. In this exhibition I have chosen pieces of my art to focus on the intrapsychic and spiritual dimensions of negotiating culture.

ManChoi

“Furthermore, cultural translation destabilizes the notion of an originating culture and opens up the space of negotiation called the third space.”

Soheila Esfahani, juror and curator

Negotiating Culture (a juried exhibition)

Honoured to be among 6 artists in this thought provoking, personally and socially relevant exhibition, exploring the liminal spaces where one lives, “translating” and “negotiating” cultures.

“This curatorial project asks artists to reflect on how they define culture and what it means to live in thethird spaceand negotiate cultural variance. If artists are cultural producers, how do they represent culture in their work? What are some of the ways we connect to other cultures and possibly live in liminal or in-between spaces?”

Soheila Esfahani, juror and professor of art, University of Western Ontario