Menu
Aurora-based artist, poet, and journalist Yafang Shi is presenting her solo exhibition “Knots” (https://contactphoto.com/festival/2025/open-call/31653) in the center of the Aurora as part of the CONTACT Photography Festival and her artwork “A Twisted Diptych: 荷包牡丹/Bleeding Heart and Chinese Blessings on the Canadian Snow” in the Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC) ‘s group exhibition that is also part of the CONTACT Photography Festival.
May is Asian Heritage Month. Both Shi’s solo exhibition “Knots” and her artwork “A Twisted Diptych: 荷包牡丹/Bleeding Heart and Chinese Blessings on the Canadian Snow” are marking Asian Heritage Month.
As a Chinese settler and immigrant woman living and creating in Aurora, in the exhibition “Knots”, Shi contemplates her relationship with Indigenous lands she lives on, the ecological environment she lives in, her constantly evolving identity, and the social reality she needs to navigate through. Her intricate and evocative diptych, triptych, quadtych and collage paired with her poems weave a multilayered tapestry of personal lived experiences, inner emotions, and societal conditions from a decolonial, intersectional, and transnational feminist perspective. This body of work echoes her long-term and ongoing documentary project on social movements for women’s rights and social justice.
All proceeds from this exhibition will be donated to the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
“Knots” is being exhibited at Bella Aurora Cafe from May 1 to June 30.
Shi is also presenting her artwork “A Twisted Diptych: 荷包牡丹/Bleeding Heart and Chinese Blessings on the Canadian Snow” in The Women’s Art Association of Canada (WAAC) ‘s group exhibition “Through the Lens: CONTACT Photography Festival 2025”.
In her artist statement, Shi states, “The Chinese name for the flower bleeding heart is 荷包牡丹. 荷包 is a pouch made of fine textile and exquisite embroidery. A gift of 荷包 carries good wishes and blessings. 荷包牡丹/bleeding heart is a fitting metaphor for the history of Chinese people in Canada. Chinese people came to Canada with a heart yearning for happiness but encountered the racist Chinese Head Tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act in the colonial system. Longing hearts were broken and bleeding. The oranges are wrapped in red paper with “福” (“Fortune”) on the snow. The sound of orange in Chinese is similar to
“Luck”. This image is a metaphor for the Chinese people’s longings as well as the challenges they face in contemporary Canadian society. The twisted diptych represents the unjust reality and the persistent resistance to it.”
The group exhibition “Through the Lens: CONTACT Photography Festival 2025” is being exhibited at Dignam Gallery from Thursday, May 1 to Sunday, May 25, 2025.
