Veronica Cheung

My work depicts my emotions and childhood memories regarding Cantonese culture. I also explore the struggle of maintaining personal identity between Western and Eastern cultures. I want to preserve and promote traditional techniques, as well as public and personal memories. This work is named after my home address in Hong Kong, and I wanted to bring this dining space to my home in Canada. I included traditional elements like tile patterns embossed on cardstock and Hong Kong dinnerware styles, which embody personal memories. The tiles crackle when stepped on and the patterns pick up dirt from shoes, which makes them pop. The whole work is white to create a dreamy, fragile space. It's meant to show how families aren't always perfect, and this dreaminess in a domestic scene highlights the contrast between the expected world and the real world. 

Veronica Cheung is a Toronto-based installation artist who primarily works in the disciplines of sculpture, sound, and video. As a first-generation immigrant who was born in Hong Kong and migrated to Canada in 2014, Veronica faces many challenges of being Asian and living in a dominant Western society. She feels the constant code-switching and how living in-between two cultures have dramatically affected her daily life. The old traditions taught by her parents in combination with the local culture and society she is currently adapting to is a constant struggle. As an artist, Veronica tries to preserve and promote the traditional techniques of public and personal collective memories from Hong Kong, placing them in the Western society to raise awareness of Chinese cultural appropriation. The artist welcomes and encourages the viewers to be a part of her work.