site installations
Believe it or not
May and June 2021
Shellie Zhang Believe it or not
May/June 2021
Installations throughout Riversdale, Saskatoon
Believe it or Not is a new solo exhibition by Shellie Zhang. In 2019, Zhang was invited by AKA to visit Saskatoon for a research residency. The residency led her to focus on the sites, visuals, and stories of historical enactments; their effectiveness, their intended audience and their role in disseminating historical narratives. The exhibition will present three new bodies of work and an outdoor billboard that examine fallacies Zhang observed within the historical fiction framework, definitions of what constitutes heritage and commemoration, the politics of believability and the complex process of contending with the present by learning from the past.
(b. 1991, Beijing, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. She has exhibited at venues including WORKJAM (Beijing), Asian Art Initiative (Philadelphia) and Gallery 44 (Toronto). She is a recipient of grants such as the RBC Museum Emerging Professional Grant, the Toronto Arts Council’s Visual Projects grant, and the Canada Council’s Project Grant to Visual Artists. Recent projects include a residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Creative Time Summit, and publication with the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU). Upcoming projects include a long-term research project in Saskatoon and a solo exhibition at the New Gallery (Calgary).
By uniting both past and present iconography with the techniques of mass communication, language and sign, Zhang’s work deconstructs notions of tradition, gender, identity, the diaspora, and popular culture while calling attention to these subjects in the context and construction of a multicultural society. She is interested in exploring how integration, diversity and assimilation is implemented and negotiated, how this relates to lived experiences, and how culture is learned and relearned.