媽媽的藥櫃 / Mother’s Cupboard – Transit Shelter Series

From October 2018 to February 2019, Paul Wong presented two series of works across the city in 45 transit shelter ad spaces for public art: one highlighting works created during his OCCUPYING CHINATOWN residency, and another promoting his exhibition 淑芳你好嘛 (Suk-Fong Nay Ho Mah) / Suk-Fong, How Are You?.

媽媽的藥櫃 / Mother’s Cupboard (October 2018 to January 2019)
The first series featured photographs of jars of Chinese herbs and medicines in random transit shelters throughout Vancouver, and at specific locations in Chinatown:
Main St. & Keefer St., Hastings St. & Carrall St., and Keefer Pl. & Taylor St.

For this series, Wong organized the photographing of jars by their western brands, and presented these as large pop art sized ads, mimicking commercial food advertising. The repurposed mayonnaise and instant coffee jars contained herbs and medicines stored and labeled by Suk-Fong Wong in Chinese handwriting, and carefully dated. This selection included “tet ah dew”, a homemade compound used for healing cuts and bruises that has no written recipe.

淑芳你好嘛
(Suk-Fong Nay Ho Mah) / Suk-Fong, How Are You? (January 14 to February 3, 2019)
This second series promoted the exhibition at the Dr. Sun Yat-Set Classical Chinese Garden, 淑芳你好嘛 (Suk-Fong Nay Ho Mah) / Suk-Fong, How Are You?
(January 12 to February 24, 2019). This included additional jars from 媽媽的藥櫃 / Mother’s Cupboard, 父字 / Father’s Words, and posters advertising the exhibition. 


Related Links

身在唐人街 / Occupying Chinatown, Heart of the City Festival, Oct 2018

Installation, Photography, Public Art