UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness is excited to announce the exhibition to carve without cutting, curated by Asia Jong. The exhibition will unfold simultaneously across the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden & Public Park in Vancouver’s Chinatown, from August 31 to September 28, 2024 with an opening reception on August 30 from 5-8pm.
to carve without cutting is: an exercise of the heart beating, breaking, expanding, sweating, folding, molting, remaking itself over and over and over again. Like peering into a heart-shaped keyhole, the exhibition attempts to offer a peek, if only for a second, into the fleeting and enigmatic moments of romantic love. Eight pairs of romantically-involved artist partners were commissioned to create site-specific works, drawing from the architecture, symbolism, and design of the Ming Dynasty-era Garden and Park. Artworks are found nestled in rock crevices, under willow trees, along the pebbled walkways, and floating among lily pads. Whether informed by years of partnership, the process of breaking apart, or the fantasy of a never-met online connection, the approaches to artmaking are as varied as the artists’ relationships. Inspired by the Taoist principle of “carving without cutting,” curator Asia Jong invites visitors to consider, and recontextualize, the dualistic ebb and flow of transformative love.
Featuring:
- Qian Cheng & Chris Lloyd
- Barry Doupé & Dennis Ha
- Maria-Margaretta & Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (featuring Mino-Margaret Cabana Boucher Pawis Steckley)
- Ellis Sam & Tiziana La Melia
- Dana Qaddah & karmella benedito de barros
- Amy Ching-Yan Lam & Robin Simpson
- Lou Lou Sainsbury & Gabi Dao
- Erin Skiffington & Landon Lim
The opening reception is a free event that will be held on August 30, from 5–8pm at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden and Park, featuring live performances by Strawberry (Barry Doupé and Dennis Ha). Drinks will be available for purchase. Fancy dress is not mandatory, but highly encouraged!!
This project is made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts and Vancouver Park Board.
For the duration of the exhibition run, admission to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden and Park is free by reservation through the Chinese Classical Garden Society Eventbrite. The Garden and Park is open Tuesdays–Sundays and their entrance is at 578 Carrall Street.
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is a cultural heritage site and registered museum located in the heart of Vancouver’s Chinatown. Managed by The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden Society of Vancouver, a non-profit charitable organization, the Garden operates under an agreement with the Vancouver Park Board. is a cultural heritage site and registered museum located in the heart of Vancouver’s Chinatown. Managed by The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden Society of Vancouver, a non-profit charitable organization, the Garden operates under an agreement with the Vancouver Park Board.
ACTIVATIONS AND EVENTS
SEPT 1, 5:00pm: Gabi Dao and Lou Lou Sainsbury: Elemental Poetics: Spellcasting for Re-Enchantment
A scent and sensory workshop facilitated by artists Gabi Dao and Lou Lou Sainsbury, presented in conjunction with the exhibition.
- September 1, 2024, 5:00 – 9:00ish PM
- UNIT/PITT Garden + Gallery
- 2954 W 4th Ave, ‘Vancouver’
How can poetry and ritual move us toward imagining more transformative, pleasurable and anticolonial relations to more-than-human worlds? Elemental Poetics: Spellcasting for Re-Enchantment is an experimental writing, drawing and sensing workshop that explores poetry as a form of ‘spellcasting’ — enacting intentional engagements with somatic and critical desires in our personal and political lives for the past, present and future.
Together we’ll pursue what it might mean to re-enchant our bodies, minds and spirits within everyday elemental pleasures as an essential strategy of survival — a radical re-imagination beyond the current, hegemonic reality for marginalized human and more-than-human communities. Inspired by practices of transpoetics, as well as texts by Pauline Oliveros, Luce Irigaray, Samuel R. Delany and Yoko Tawada, the workshop focuses on writing with the senses that go beyond sight and vision, focusing on sound and listening, and scent and smell within UNIT/PITT’s garden ecology.
– – – –
Elemental Poetics will be held on September 1 from 5:00 – 9:00ish PM. Participants will be guided by Gabi and Lou Lou through an experimental writing process from 5:00 – 7:00, break for a light mezze from 7:00 – 8:00, then embark on a beach walk to the nearby beach at the bottom of Bayswater Street. Work produced during the workshop will then be activated alongside Gabi and Lou Lou’s new sculptural work mosquito girlfriend, presented as part of the to carve without cutting exhibition at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden and Park.
SEPT 14, 8:00pm: Klectic Kink: Tiziana la Melia + Ellis Sam perform the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival!
LOCATION: Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden & Park
On September 14 at 8:00pm, to carve without cutting pair Tiziana la Melia and Ellis Sam will be performing a special set during the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden’s 38th Annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival: Celestial Dance of Yin and Yang.
♡ Tickets starting at $9.85 via the festival Eventbrite ♡
Tiziana La Melia & Ellis Sam fuse poetry and sound. Their vinyl record Klectic Kink was concocted during the 2020 lockdown and its ensuing waves of deep reflection. Their music sits on a spectrum, not background in character but interactive and narrative, adding an expanse of time and location, imagining the feeling of being in the bathroom at a nightclub, and the liveliness of a voice memo while wiping mascara away from the eyes onto denim jeans. The poetry references the kletic hymn, a poetic song of praise, prayer or plea addressed to either a deity or to “non-divine” beings, such as mortals, creatures from the animal kingdom or elements of the natural world.
The Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden’s 38th Annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is a cherished tradition celebrating the beauty and harmony of the lunar cycle. The Festival runs September 14 and 15th, 4:00 – 9:00pm, featuring a dizzying array of events throughout the Garden and Courtyard, including lion dances, opera, performances, activities, and more!
to carve without cutting will also be open to view throughout the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival from 4–8pm on Sep 14 & 15.
Please note that our regular free admission will be paused during the Festival.
SEPT 28, 1:00pm: Light grows wild: XINEMA Film Screening and Closing Reception
LOCATION: Chinese Cultural Centre Museum (555 Columbia) & Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden and Park
Total program time: 55 min
@ the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum (555 Columbia St.)
The screening will be followed by a closing reception at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden from 2:30–4:00pm in the Hall of One Hundred Rivers.
Limited $15 (no one turned away for lack of funds) are available. Click here to get your ticket.
Please email info@unitpitt.ca if you need financial or physical accommodation. For accessibility notes please visit unitpitt.ca/about.
If you would like to attend only the free reception, please RSVP by emailing info@unitpitt.ca.
Screening:
Emma Roufs, still from on breathing, 2017, 16mm film to HD video, 3 min. Courtesy of the Artist and CFMDC.
on breathing (Canada, 2017), Emma Roufs, 3 min
→ Excerpt
A visual and sonic essay showcasing the light, wind, movement, breath, and the strength of the Earth.Distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC).
Bram Ruiter, still from Here & Elsewhere, 2023, 16mm film and HD video, 11 min. Courtesy of the Artist.
Here & Elsewhere (Netherlands, 2023), Bram Ruiter, 11 min
→ Trailer
Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ poem Arte Poética, Here & Elsewhere is a romantic film in which water serves as a guiding force for a journey with an unclear destination.
Daniel Robin, still from Sun Coming and Casting a Shadow, 2022, Super8 film to HD video, 7 min. Courtesy of the Artist.
Sun Coming and Casting a Shadow (USA, 2022), Daniel Robin, 7 min
A film about time, memory, fear, and the challenges of holding onto joy.
Chris Chong Chan Fui, still from Let Me Start By Saying, 2001, 16mm film to HD video, 3 min. Courtesy of the Artist and CFMDC.
Let Me Start By Saying (Canada, 2001), Chris Chong Chan Fui, 3 min
A gay man has fallen in love with a woman; she has gone away, and the image of her face haunts him. Desperately, he tries to come up with a way to be close to her again.Distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC).
Carolee Schneemann, still from Plumb Line, 1972, 16mm film to HD video, 14.5 min. Copyright the Carolee Schneemann Foundation. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Plumb Line (USA, 1972), Carolee Schneemann, 14.5 min
The dissolution of a relationship unravels through visual and aural equivalences. Schneemann splits and recomposes actions of the lovers in a streaming montage of disruptive permutations: 8 mm is printed as 16 mm, moving images freeze, frames recur and dissolve until the film bursts into flames, consuming its own substance.
Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI).
Tiziana La Melia and Maryse Lariviere, still from Garden Gossip, 2017, 16mm film and HD video, 5.5 min. Courtesy of the Artists.
Garden Gossip (Canada, 2017), Tiziana La Melia & Maryse Lariviere, 5.5 min
A Letter from the future, “Garden Gossip” is a richly layered 16mm film that amplifies interspecies communication while echoing feminist ecological concerns, reminiscent of Joyce Wieland’s work. Through textural and performative explorations, the film reclaims the subversive potential of traditionally feminine spaces and practices. It reimagines gossip as an act of reclamation and resistance, embodied through poetry and natural motifs—scents, flowers, and bird whispers.
Carolynne Hew, still from Swell, 1998, 16mm film to HD video, 5 min. Courtesy of the Artist and CFMDC.
Swell (Canada, 1998), Carolynne Hew, 5 min
Desire disorients and bodily swellings result. “A lovely concoction of hand-tinted and scratched film evoking a woman’s flight from concrete to nature – spurred on by a kiss.” – Gordon Bowness, Xtra! Distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC).
Sarah Wood, still from Manifesto for Love, 2003, HD video, 6 min. Courtesy of the Artist and CFMDC.
Manifesto for Love (UK, 2003), Sarah Wood, 6 min
Art form crosses art form and makes a new art form. Manifesto for Love is an inter-layered journey into the highs and lows of the romantic adventure: an experiment in shape, music, vision and words to find a new expression of love. Distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC).
——
XINEMA [zin-em-a] is an artist-run experimental film series founded and based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). They began operation in VIFF Centre’s 41 seat Studio Theatre, with a focus on BC-based and connected media artists, stringing emerging and established artists together into monthly thematic programs. Their main priorities are to remain low-barrier, accepting free ongoing and unlimited submissions of any year or premiere status; prioritize underrepresented artists and media forms; and connect filmmakers and film-lovers of various backgrounds, disciplines and career levels.
PRINTED MATTER
- to carve without cutting Zine (includes curatorial essay by Asia Jong. Designed by Cora Yiu.
- The Pond, Amy Ching-Yan Lam & Robin Simpson, 2024
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Asia Jong 鍾金玉 is an independent curator, arts facilitator, and writer from Armstrong, B.C., based in Vancouver, on unceded and traditional xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ territories. She is interested in exploring the contemporary conditions of love and dating, and her practice often centers on collaboration, in particular engaging friendship and relationship building as a framework for art and exhibition making. Recent curatorial projects include exhibitions at: 221A (2024); Duplex Artists Society (2021); Or Gallery (2021); and The Alternator (2021). Her writing has been published by: Capture Photography Festival (2024); Afternoon Projects (2024); Burrard Arts Foundation (2022); Libby Leshgold Gallery (2021); and AsiaArtPacific (2021). From 2019 to 2022 she was a co-organizer of the DIY art collective Ground Floor which supported the work of early-emerging artists.
ARTIST BIOS
Barry Doupé is a Vancouver-based artist primarily working with computer animation, digital painting and sculpture. His work uses imagery and language derived from the subconscious developed through writing exercises and automatic drawing. His films have been screened throughout Canada and internationally.
Dennis Ha is a musician and artist working in photography. Born in Hong Kong SAR, he currently lives and works in Vancouver.
–
Qian Cheng is an artist and organizer whose practice delves into personal narratives and experiences through drawings and collaborative projects. In addition to her studio work, she is also the co-founder of nap gallery, a temporary project space, situated in a domestic setting that ran from 2022 to 2023. Her recent work has been shown at m.o.l.d. Gallery, Vancouver; Afternoon Projects, Vancouver; Dreams Comma Delta, Ladner; and The New Gallery, Calgary.
Chris Lloyd is a multimedia artist and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. He plays with themes of nostalgia and personal narrative by manipulating and layering found material. Recent exhibitions include N***** in Gothenburg, Entrance Gallery, hosted by NSFW in Gottenburg, Sweden (2023); I against I, Soft Opening, New York (2023); and Group Show, Company Gallery, New York (2023).
–
Gabi Dao’s practice manifests as experimental moving images, audio/visual and sculptural installations, collage, scent, and collaboration. With an insistence on multiple truths and sensory affirmations, Dao attempts to reclaim and re-enchant meaning-making from the ruins of capitalism and colonialism. Their work as been shown at E-flux Screening Room, New York; Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin, Lethbridge; A Tale-of-a-Tub, Rotterdam; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and Vincom Centre for Contemporary Art, Hà Nội. Their residencies include Triangles-Astérides, Marseille; and forthcoming at EKWC, Oisterwijk, NL; and Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL. They are from the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations (Vancouver) and live in Rotterdam.
Lou Lou Sainsbury (b. 1994; London) is an artist based in Rotterdam, working across moving image, live-performance, poetry, drawing, sculpture and textiles. A self-described time traveler, Sainsbury’s work seeks to tell stories for more liberated futures, exploring histories of resistance, transformation and entanglement within both human and more-than-human worlds. Sainsbury received her MA in Art Praxis from the Dutch Art Institute (2021) and her BA in Moving Image at the University of Brighton (2016). She was also an associate artist at Open School East (2017). Her solo exhibitions include Ehrlich Steinberg, Los Angeles; Roodkapje, Rotterdam; Gasworks, London, UK; Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK; and Well Projects, Margate, UK. She has presented in international group exhibitions and film festivals including Chapter, Cardiff, UK; Rencontres Internationales, Paris & Berlin; International Film Festival Rotterdam, Tate Modern, London; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Nottingham Contemporary, UK; and Yaby, Madrid.
–
Maria-Margaretta is an interdisciplinary Red River Michif artist from Treaty Six Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has ancestral ties to the Métis communities of St-François-Xavier, St. Boniface, Manitoba and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. She is currently making and living on the stolen territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations. Maria-Margaretta holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art+Design and an MFA from OCAD University. Her practice is an exploration of the Michif self archive, autobiographical beadwork, and objects of the everyday. Using Métis identity as a place of transformation, she questions how memory, personal experience, motherhood, and ancestral relations influence her understanding of self.
Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley is a multi-disciplinary Anishinaabe artist and storyteller from Barrie, Ontario and a member of Wasauksing First Nation. He currently resides in the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people. He is an award winning children’s book illustrator and author. Pawis-Steckley’s practice explores themes of language revitalization, ancestral knowledge sharing, and memory.
Mino-Margaret Cabana Boucher Pawis Steckley is a multi-disciplinary Anishinaabe / Métis artist born in Vancouver. She has ties to Wasauksing First Nation and the Métis community of St. Louis Saskatchewan. Mino’s artistic practice center’s love, wonder, and play. Her material investigations include finger painting, rock collecting, drawing with her dad, beading with her mom, and experimental photography/film on her parents’ iPhones. Minos work is influenced by her everyday – playing in the park with her parents, her cat Mooz, and aunties.
–
Dana Qaddah (b. Beirut, Lebanon) is an interdisciplinary artist and independent organizer based between Turtle Island (Canada) and Lebanon. Qaddah’s practice uses archives of personal and itinerant cultural knowledge, contextualized by themes of building from, and through, colonial legacies, environmental and economic deterioration, and the condition of being abstracted from one’s own sense of self and place.
karmella benedito de barros is a tired 2S afro-brazilian & mistawasis nêhiyawak plant lover, youth worker, community weaver, sporadic artist, and collaborative organizer. They are a co-founder of the art ecosystem collective and member of the Indigenous Brilliance Collective based on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations; also known as Vancouver.
–
Landon Lim (b. Suwon, 1997) makes furniture using traditional tools and techniques, opting for a more intimate and handcarved approach to woodworking. Lim received his BFA in Visual Art at Emily Carr University with a focus on painting. He currently works as a cabinetmaker in Vancouver, the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
Erin Skiffington (b. 1997, Vancouver) makes illusionistic paintings that emerge from a personal and process-guided approach. Painted in a day, each work is singular and improvised yet linked by recurring motifs, repetitive techniques and constraints. Skiffington presented her first solo exhibition, A Sunless Plane, in 2022 at Franz Kaka, Toronto. Recent group exhibitions include Fuzzy Logic at Joys, Toronto and Banquette at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver. She graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2019 with a BFA in Visual Art.
–
Amy Ching-Yan Lam is an artist and writer. She is the author of the poetry collection, Baby Book (2023, Brick Books), a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards in Poetry, and Looty Goes to Heaven (2022, Eastside Projects). Forthcoming in fall 2024 is Property Journal, published by Book Works. In spring 2023, she presented the exhibition a small but comfy house and maybe a dog at the Richmond Art Gallery. From 2006 to 2020, she was part of the performance art duo Life of a Craphead. She lives in Tkaronto/Toronto and was born in Hong Kong.
Robin Simpson is an educator, writer, and sometimes curator and translator. Currently part-time faculty at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, they have previously worked at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, and the Aga Khan Museum. Their critical writing has been published in C Magazine, Capilano Review, Espace, Sarai Reader, Journal of Canadian Art History, and Amodern, and in catalogues by MIT Press, Presentation House Gallery, and Phi Foundation. In collaboration with the Williams family and musician and writer Alexander Moskos, they coordinate the preservation, research, and presentation of the life work of artist, poet, and musician Carlyle Williams.
–
Tiziana La Melia (b. 1982, Palermo, Italy) is an artist and writer raised on an orchard-garden on Syilx/Okanagan territories, living as a guest on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ / Selilwitulh First Nations. In her practice, La Melia gleans the detritus of the everyday and transmutes it into material textures, and iterative shapes and symbols, which move through layers of diasporic time. Solo and two-person presentations include Bad Water, Knoxville (2024); Damien and the Love Guru, with Alison Yip, Zurich (2023); Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (2019); Unit 17, Vancouver (2018). Recent group exhibitions and readings include The Kamloops Art Gallery (2024); Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (2024); The Western Front, Vancouver (2023); Support, Montreal (2023); Dreams Comma Delta (2023); Mecenes du Sud, Montpellier, France (2021). Recent publishing projects include The Eyelash and the Monochrome (Talonbooks, 2018), lettuce lettuce please go bad (Talonbooks, 2024) and the poetry album Kletic Kink with Ellis Sam (Tenderly, 2022).
Ellis Sam currently resides on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. He was born and raised in Vancouver, and his work is focused on storytelling through music and video.