Are you a bat eater? -A commentary on Covid and my love for Chinese traditional art
In light of recent news regarding hate crimes directed against Asian communities… I made an artwork about increasing crimes against Chinese people in midst of the pandemic, while still appreciating beautiful traditional Chinese paintings.
Context
The pandemic has been an excuse to justify racist behaviour, ranging from something as small as eye-rolls when passing the street, to fatal directed shootings towards 8 Asian Americans. Slowly by the day, pre-existing gaps find themselves diverging further and further, making it impossible to ignore. Covid acts as pressure tested way to measure how much weight our current system can sustain. Not too well.
For example, black communities have been disproportionately affected by Covid, poverty by postal code is one of the reasons. Or even a dearth of medical research for certain racial groups. Canada’s medical system is embedded with racial and gendered prejudice, including genetic studies of human diseases that are “predominantly based on populations of European ancestry” (Popejoy and Fullerton, 2016, para. 1). The reason behind discriminatory treatments varies, including narrow data diversity and biases regarding researchers in the medical field. For example, women researchers get “less funding than men” and are “more likely to be discriminated against in hiring, pay and career advancement” (Camh, 2020, para. 2).
The point is: systematic discrimination exists
So what?
As someone who is an Asian Canadian, second-generation immigrant I’ve been resistant to believing I have a disadvantage. I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t want to self victimize myself, or I’ve been taught in Asian culture to be quiet (model minority complex). I believe the only thing I can do to optimize success is by taking advantage of my current opportunities.
Acknowledging inherent weaknesses bounded by a gigantic system out of your control only makes you more scared to try. If someone punches you, brush yourself up, stand up and keep walking.
Sidenote: I am privileged to be able to speak on my issues like this- there is probably some survivorship bias embedded.
However, It feels so good to be heard. There’s merit in just talking and understanding different perspectives.
I use to be an ELL student and I’m currently writing a research paper regarding the social discrimination immigrant ELL students face. I read about similar stories I faced- and I feel connected, empowered.
Model minorities that have high achievements in life are taught to be silent about their experiences with discrimination; a student’s hard work and resilience towards social alienation often goes ignored and unreported.
Using art as an exploration into a complicated relationship
My relationship with my ethnicity is complicated, and I use art to explore it.
Artwork is a representation of an artist, and their political and social influences at the time.
As a child, I use to look down on traditional Chinese paintings; I felt that these works of art weren’t as “good” compared to Western drawings, like the Mona Lisa. I had been conditioned to be ashamed of my own culture my entire life and I didn’t even realize it. For example, in grade 3, I use to beg my dad to pack me Lunchables for lunch instead of traditional Chinese food that he made with care. Meanwhile, I wanted to be white/ have blonde hair in a white-dominated school for a great period of my life. It wasn’t until recently did I realize how ungrateful I was of my own culture.
As a result, I started asking my grandmother questions about her life in China- realized she was the first female bank manager in her town. I started browsing through the Mandarin books hidden away in my house.
Additionally, I started searching for famous Chinese artwork and spending time enjoying them. Now when I look at Chinese paintings on scrolls, I have a great appreciation for the techniques behind each stroke. I have a great appreciation of the rich history. Oddly, when I look at these paintings, I feel heard and a sense of belonging.
In traditional silk paintings, you’d find elements of:
- Dark bold black swooshes
- Soft watery flowing movements
- Hints of brown and yellow
- The seamless layering of colours
A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains is stunningly and seamless (photo below). Specifically, the humble green tones, subtle yellow, and bright blue work well together. It provides the audience with a serene/calm feeling of the scenery. The bright blue acts as a highlighting colour to create an illusion of form. The blue highlights features of the mountain that stand out and receive more sunlight. Meanwhile, darker, dull colours like deep brown are used to tone down certain features. As a result of different values (use of blue and brown), the mountain takes a 3D form, which has highlights and shadows.
Additionally, the artist uses fluid, flexible lines. The fluid lines are paired with variations in the value of the colour. This is seen with the linework on the mountains. The colour used to draw the mountains elegantly fade in and get bolder at the top of the mountain. Eventually, the colour of the mountain fades out again by adopting a tint.
This seamless movement from light → bold → light again creates rhythm within the piece.
Every mountain in this piece follows the same pattern of effortless fading in and out. It makes the entire artwork feel like a fluid, living, moving body of work.
My artwork takes these stylistic elements into consideration and application.
I used watercolour, and ink to layer the same fluid effect.
However, there’s a twist. The shape of these mountains is actually the shape of covid trends in certain countries like the US, Canada, Afghanistan.
I wanted to point out the hypocrisy of Karen freedom crying anti-maskers.
Covid numbers keep increasing by the day in large of ignorant anti maskers and party-ers. Regardless, it is the homogenous group of Chinese people that are getting blamed for other’s irresponsible behaviours.
I chose to show the beauty and ugliness of this issue. It is meant to bring cognitive dissonance to the viewer. The layer of traditional art is meant to reveal the beauty of culture. Meanwhile, the text is representative of the underserving tainted comments against the Chinese.
Social problems seem so abstract at times: The scale at which it impacts is sometimes unfathomable… leading to complacency to solve issues.
We raise our hands up and say- “that’s not my problem. Society just sucks.”
Instead, think a bit smaller by analyzing your own personal relationship with race. Big problems rely on the compounding effects of individuals’ beliefs systems which are fed by experiences.
We are collectively painting a picture. You have a brush. What is your next stroke going to be? Maybe you want to first analyze your brush- see what it’s capable of doing first.
About the author: Christina Wang
I am fulfilled when I have the creative freedom to learn and innovate. The projects I pursue and the skills I train are all done with the intention to create a long-term, positive, sustainable impact. More @ https://wangchristina.com.
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