“Why do we feel like we need to own homes?”
This is a question Toronto-based artist Amy Ching-Yan Lam is asking people at Richmond Art Gallery’s latest exhibition.
Lam, who has been a practicing artist since 2006, is hosting her first gallery exhibition in Richmond titled “A Small But Comfy House” from April 22 to June 11.
Featured at the exhibition are artworks, a book and an animated video of a famous Pekingese dog named Looty that was taken from China’s Summer Palace by British troops at the end of the Second Opium War.
A new series of sculptures created by Lam in collaboration with HaeAhn Woo Kwon will also be on display.
Both these elements of the exhibition represent the housing crisis in Canada while making the connection to the “larger history of colonial activities and enterprises,” according to Lam.
She has always had childhood dreams of financial stability and a “small but comfy house and maybe a dog,” but the reality is far from those dreams.
“The exhibition itself questions how colonial history and… themes of domestication have influenced these dreams,” said Lam.
Lam told the Richmond News that the process of her parents moving to Toronto has sparked more questions about the housing crisis in Canada.
“Whether they’re able to do it, and the challenges that come with that have been at the forefront of my mind,” she said, adding that as a tenant she wanted to “make an exhibition to reflect that reality.”
“People have aspirations to purchase apartments. But I am hoping that people can connect those desires with longer-term histories.”
Lam further questions the feeling of security of owning a home in Canada.
“Do we have that kind of security in the context of Canada which is a colonial state? We live on land that’s not ours.”
When asked about her dream of a “small but comfy home,” Lam said she is still in the process of coming to realize that dream is “far from reality.”
“I think it’s very hard to shake those goals that you think you should have, but is far from yours and many others’ reach.”
While Lam’s exhibition is taking place in Richmond, community members can loan out artworks through the Richmond Art Gallery.
The News has been told that artwork from the gallery’s collections can be loaned out to residents and installed professionally in their homes.
