Snack Witch Joni Cheung: fill full feel full
Eastern Edge is thrilled to announce a new Main Gallery exhibition: fill full feel full by Snack Witch Joni Cheung! The show will be opening on May 23rd with a reception from 6-8pm! As usual, we will have snacks and refreshments, and the artist will be present that evening! We hope to see you there—click here to RSVP to the Facebook event.
fill full feel full is a gathering of participatory and collaborative projects exploring how physical objects and digital platforms are adapted to meet the needs of diasporic communities.
In 2019, Snack Witch Joni Cheung moved to Tiohtiá:ke | Mooniyang | Montréal to become a Certified Sculpture Witch. Already struggling to find community in a new place, COVID-19’s arrival made things even more difficult as Anti-Asian sentiment and violence proliferated across the globe.
During a time of pandemic amnesia, Snack Witch’s practice reflects on the ways communities can build, nurture, and sustain relationships over geographic, temporal, and sociocultural distances. Through installation, video, sound, and printed ephemera, Cheung brings together stories collected from the past, future, and present. In her attempts to navigate and mend their own physical, emotional, spiritual, and ancestral recesses, these projects simultaneously become love notes: Sent out to those within and outside of Eastern Edge, in the hopes of finding others also seeking connection during strenuous times.
填滿·圓滿是一場關於參與性與協作性的展覽，匯聚多個藝術項目，探討實體物件與數字平臺如何被調適，以回應散居社群的多樣需求。
2019 年，零食女巫 Joni Cheung 搬到 Tiohtiá:ke｜Mooniyang｜蒙特利爾，成爲一位認証的雕塑女巫。初到異地就感到難以融入社群，疫情的爆髮以及全球反亞裔情緒與暴力事件持續蔓延令情況更加糟糕。
在這段集體記憶模糊的時期，零食女巫的藝術實踐反思了社群如何在地理、時間與社會文化的距離之間，建構、滋養並維繫關繫。透過裝置、影像、聲音與印刷品等媒材，Cheung 匯集來自過去、現在與未來的故事。在她試圖探索與修複自身身體、情感、精神與祖先創傷的過程中，這些創作也逐漸成爲一封封充滿愛的信件：寄給Eastern Edge畫廊內外的人們，希望在艱難時刻中，找到也在尋求連結的你。
Joni Cheung would like to thank Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this exhibition.
🔮 Snack Witch Joni Cheung 🍡 is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. They are a Certified Sculpture Witch with an MFA from Concordia University (2023). She holds a BFA with Distinction in Visual Art (2018) from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. As a wicked #magicalgirl ✨ who eats art and makes snacks, she has exhibited and curated shows, off- and online, across Turtle Island and beyond. Currently, they are based on the stolen lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka and Mi’kmaq peoples, working as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University and the School of Graduate Studies at NSCAD University.
They are a recipient of numerous awards, including the Individual Arts Grants—Visual Artists: British Columbia Arts Council; Research and Creation Grant: Canada Council for the Arts; and the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship: Concordia University. She was waitlisted for the SSHRC – Joseph-Armand Bombardier: Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship.
Aside from art-making, Joni likes wandering down grocery store aisles and drinking bubble tea. 🧋
🔮零食女巫 Joni Cheung 🍡 是一位感恩的、不請自來的客人，出生於、並決定未來也將死於 xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh 原住民未割讓的土地上。Joni是獲得康考迪亞大學雕塑藝術碩士學位（2023）的認證女巫，並以優異成績取得西門菲莎大學當代藝術學院的視覺藝術學士學位（2018）。
作為一個調皮的 #魔法少女 ✨，Joni以藝術為食、以零食創作，曾在龜島（Turtle Island）及其他地區策劃和展出作品，包括線上與線下展覽。目前Joni常駐在 Kanien’kehá:ka 和Mi’kmaq 原住民被盜的土地上，於康考迪亞大學設計與計算藝術系和新斯科舍藝術與設計大學研究生院擔任兼職講師。
Joni曾榮獲多項獎項，包括不列顛哥倫比亞省藝術委員會頒發的個人藝術資助—視覺藝術類、加拿大藝術委員會的研究與創作資助，以及康考迪亞大學的 Dale and Nick Tedeschi 工作室藝術獎學金。她也曾入圍 SSHRC – Joseph-Armand Bombardier 加拿大研究生碩士獎學金。
除了藝術創作，Joni還喜歡在雜貨店的過道上閑逛和喝珍珠奶茶。🧋
Photo Documentation
Photo Credit: Laura Sbrizzi
Click below to view the exhibition virtually!