
Models of Yellow Apparel by Mary Sui Yee Wong | Photo by Jon Benjamin Photography
“I really wanted to involve the community; it became not just about me and my work and my show,” Wong says, speaking of her intentions for the opening night which also represents the overall exhibit. “It was also a way to solicit older generations of Chinese Canadians to come and see contemporary art.”
The exhibit presents work of various mediums, including sculpture, video, photograph, costume and a public piece.
Family values
The artist was born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver’s Chinatown. She then earned a BFA and MFA from Concordia University in Montreal where she is now a faculty member. Wong’s identity as a Chinese Canadian immigrant has heavily affected her artistic creation.
“Often my memories of my lived experience inform the way that I might approach materiality or approach a certain form or choice of subject matter,” she explains.
The artist credits her father – Cantonese opera master Toa Wong – as having a profound influence on her art. His experiences, including challenges with maintaining his craft after moving to Canada, helped her learn the importance of community.
“I think just in general, as [part of] a diaspora, as a person of colour, often the places that we feel most safe is within our own family structure,” the artist adds.
The exhibit also engages with themes of personal memory and cultural history. Wong’s interest in exploring the Asian diaspora is more than thematic; she considers what materials, forms and mediums could speak to these experiences as well. The key, for the artist, is stressing a shared humanity – one that recognizes social, cultural, political and economic factors.
“All of that plays a really important role in how we become more inclusive in terms of our diverse world,” she says. “We are no longer living in a world where we can hold onto those ethnocentric values.”
Critical reflections
Her work TREASURE II (2025) is a reiteration of TREASURE (1999), a 4-panel mural installation that is currently displayed inside a Montreal Chinatown hospital servicing many Chinese seniors. The new work – TREASURE II – is on display at the Canada Line’s Lansdowne Station until March 1, 2026. The piece reflects on the honouring of elders in Chinese culture.
“I looked back into my own culture [and] the way that we value elders,” the artist shares. “I found this phrase basically saying if we have an elder in our family, we have to treat them like they are living treasures.”
The artist also sees this piece as engaging with topics of Chinese art history and cultural appropriation. She points out that Chinese paintings are often seen as “national treasures,” yet they are repeatedly owned by those outside the Chinese community.
“I needed to explore the tensions of those kinds of histories that influence and inspire, even in the ways that I think and live my life,” she says. “And the way that I see often my community kept in stasis, almost confined so that they cannot expand and have the liberty to grow as anyone else would because there are these practices of colonialism, orientalism and racism in play even today.”
Wong confronts practices of colonialism, using her role as artist and educator to inspire others into these reflections. For her, these conversations require courage to remove the “colonial cloaks” that silence others’ voices and experiences, while challenging the idea that everyone is on “equal footing.”
“We are all socialized to almost exclude others and others’ experiences, in preference of one’s own, especially in Western culture, where the self is more important than a community,” the artist reflects.
She hopes that these reflections allow people to be more open, encouraging acceptance and tolerance of themselves and others. The exhibit’s curator, Zoë Chan helped Wong explore these interests, encouraging her to showcase work that would register with a younger artist audience.
“We had conversations about what it meant for me to dig into my archives of 30 years and what kind of work that I should share and pull out in this community,” Wong says. “In Richmond, which is predominantly Asian; that was of interest to me.”
Wong will participate in an online Artist Salon on May 28. Curator Zoë Chan will also facilitate an informal tour of the exhibit on June 7. The exhibit is part of the 2025 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibition Program.
For more information, see