In Oil & Silk

Host: Adora Nwofor 

Starring: Yu Chen

Production House: FOREIGNERZ @sansfuccs

Director: Eman Safadi, CONTRA 

Producer: Eman Safadi, CONTRA 

Assistant Producer: Ronda Kadri

First Camera: Jemmy Lu

Second Camera: Jevan Bailey

Third Camera: Shardul

Editor: Benjamin San Martin

Colourist: Benjamin San Martin

Location Sound: Jevan Bailey

Sound Design: Benjamin San Martin

Special Thanks to: C-Space

Title Sequence: Cole Edwards 

Music

• Disco Makumba – El Flaco Collective
• Sunshine – KINGXMAGS 
• Camden Calling – Dusty Decks
• Quick – Loyae
• The Flow – Martin Landstrom
• Waiting to Say – Molife
• Not So Lost – Kayla
• Ahogados – prod. by GEOO 
• Game Room – Timothy Infinite

Yu Chen: Growing up, I never felt related to them. I don’t ever own a Manchu dress, but then as soon as I learned about Han Chinese culture, it just went like, okay, so you’re saying this is me? It connected right away because, like, how could I not know this before? With all those 56 different nationalities in China, they all have their traditional outfits, but as a Han Chinese, we’re wearing a T-shirt and jeans. I have that on my ID, it says I’m Han Chinese.

Hello, everyone, my name is Yu Chen. [ Speaking in Chinese]

Hello everyone, welcome to Hanfu life drawing. This is the event that you feel free to draw the model in the traditional Chinese Hanfu to celebrate today’s New Year’s event at the Central Library.

Adora Nwofor: I’m not an artist, but you can tell what it is.

Yu Chen: Yeah.

Adora: This, this is a fan. This is the beginning of flowers. And this is the edging that’s going to go… it’s also artistic licence, so it’s perfect.

Yu Chen, thank you for being on my show, Living a Creative Life.

Yu Chen: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited.

Adora: I had such a great time sketching at the library. It’s wonderful to see how you connect to the community. And so I want to ask you about your education and how you got there.

Yu Chen: Well, the fact is, I actually went to the Guangxi Art Institute first, and then it has this double major that I can do two years study in China, and then also another two years study, I finished the degree, so I get two double major from both schools, Western Oregon University, so that experience was quite amazing because then I can learn from different teachers who have different perspective with art, and I’m actually really glad that I got from two views because they’re really different. That experience actually got me thinking that what is the art that I wanted to do? And then what do I want to say? What is the story I’m putting into my art?

I would say that the moment I decided to become a Hanfu promoter, to promote my own Han Chinese culture, it’s the moment it had happened so many times to me when I was walking down the street wearing my traditional Chinese Hanfu, but then I’m often mistaken for being Japanese or from Korea.

I have to tell them that repeatedly, No, this is Chinese Hanfu. And that moment, I decided to take a next step by blending this culture into my art so that people can see it in a different way. And in this way, I also feel like making it into art and also have a stronger voice that has a better platform to promote this culture

Adora: That is so beautiful, because very often people will ask me, like where I’m from and when I tell them, they’re like, oh, you don’t look like that’s where you would be from. And so I understand how you are proud of your culture.

How did being away from China, where people would know, and being here, did it change the way that you saw your own culture?

Yu Chen: It’s funny thing is, like, with the history of what happened in the past, and not a lot of people also know about Hanfu in China. That’s the funny thing, because we have, like, more than, like 90 per cent of the population who is Han Chinese. So with the ruling class from the Manchu people during the Qing dynasty, so Hanfu was banned for quite a long time. And so it was nearly extinct for almost 300 years. But then, now that like there’s more younger generation is promoting the Hanfu culture, like they started wearing them and then to post like any possible, lived, like, evidence from the museum, from the books, from the mural art. Ever since that, I studied really hard with this culture and then to try to promote it.

Adora: That’s fantastic. I love how you have decided that, ‘this really connected for me, and I want to find out where it connects for other people.’ Were you exposed to Hanfu and the clothing as a young child?

Yu Chen: The funny thing is, no, I’m just going to give you a quick answer is no, because that was something that we don’t have anymore. Back then, when I was still a child, people believed that the Manchu traditional clothes was Han Chinese traditional clothes as well.

But then I do have a picture of five-year-old me wearing the Manchu outfit. And then that’s also why that I did not know that that’s not Han Chinese clothing. The first time I wear Hanfu was when I was, I would say, when I was almost 20 years old, when I moved to Canada, and then Hanfu movement happened in China.

Adora: I want to talk about your painting style a little bit more, because your work is usually with identity, like personal memory or collective memory. And I’m just wondering, is there something in between that or must it be one or the other?

Yu Chen: Well, the idea for me to start with this project, like I say, I wanted to really share my culture, but at the meantime, that I realized that I’m being mistaken from other people for another culture, so I might be wrong when I see some people, like other people, that who’s wearing their traditional outfit. So that the project I’m working on right now has become a way of me that I can receiving also giving that I can learn from other and then so that other people can also learn about me.

And so right now I have known about eight different countries’ traditional outfit, which is I never known before.

So on this project I have collaborated with five different artists. One of them is a photographer who’s Tim (Meduna) from Nigeria, and a multi-discipline artist from Philippines named Harvey Nichol. And also I have my friend Mi Mariewho is a musician, she’s the one holding the violin in the portrait. And I also have a friend that we’ve been collaborating with a lot of life drawing sessions together. And his name is Noah (Haruki). He’s wearing the traditional Japanese kimono.

Harvey Nichol: Yeah, this is my first time modeling for a still life painting. And, it’s been great, actually. I’m really, I’m really excited and also very proud to be able to share my culture proudly with other people from different backgrounds as well.

I think it’s a natural progression, you know, when you’ve been in the scene for a while to be able to like, you know, work with other artists and also be in each other’s art? I think it’s a great way for artists to connect, and also a great way to share to the world that, you know, like you don’t have to live in these silos to create great art. You can like, you know, collaborate with each other. And it makes the scene much more, you know, colourful.

Noah Haruki: I’ve known Yu Chen for quite a while. I started running a kimono life drawing program through the Japanese Community Association, and I had talked to her at the Japanese festival as well about the program and about the project, and that’s sort of how we met. And she started attending some of the classes, and she started her own life drawing group as well, so I was attending some of her sessions. And so that’s kind of how we connected was through art and as artists.

And I feel like any time that you have that, I don’t know, historical cultural context for the work that you create, it sort of adds a level of depth to the work as well. And at least for me, I know, like it’s been a great way to reconnect with my heritage as a Japanese Canadian. And I think for Yu Chen too, like it’s been a good way for her to connect with her Chinese heritage as well, while she’s living here in Canada, and sort of more separated from it.

Yu Chen: Outside of my artistic practice, most people don’t know about that, I’m also a makeup artist. I have been doing hair and makeup around Calgary for four years now. That’s like my job. And also, it’s funny to bring this up too, because after I moved here, I really wanted to make a living, and I didn’t think that art is the way for me. That was a stupid thought. I was actually away from art for three years, I hadn’t created anything other in the past three years before I participate the Werklund program. Yeah, it was a really sad story, that I had a really, lots of self-doubt and lots of difficult moments during those time period. Also, luckily for those moments that made me realize that I really want to do art, I really want to go back to art, I really wanted to be able to paint, to create.

So I, ever since I joined this program and everybody has been so kind, and then telling me that I should continue to paint, and people walk by, they would praise my art, they would tell me how great I am. And that really encourages more. Okay, I am going to the right direction.

Are you ready?

Adora: I am ready,

Yu Chen: I’m not. I’m kidding.

Adora: Oh, I love it. And you’re funny. Let’s see how it goes. I’m here, I’m here. Yu Chen, it’s me.

Yu Chen: Yeah. That is you.

Adora: Oh, my. No, it’s a whole face.

Yu Chen: I know! What do you think? Why, do you not think I’m just doing stick men?

Adora: No, not at all. But listen, this nose, people often mess up my nose. It’s like, I’m a little emotional about it because, I don’t know if I see my face like this all the time, but I did see this, I don’t know, beginning of the year, and my kids told me, no, mommy, that’s, I told them my face looks too skinny and, they’re like, no, mommy, that’s what you look like. And then you did that. Yeah. And so I’m emotional again. I don’t always see myself, and so thank you, thank you for seeing me. Oh my God.