Florence Yee

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Florence Yee

“Selected Hauntings,” 2018 (courtesy The New Gallery, Calgary)

A self-described recovering workaholic, Florence Yee, who is based in Montreal and Toronto, speaks to the nuanced politics of our time. You Listen Better to Echoes, on view until Feb. 12 at The New Gallery in Calgary, examines race, multiculturalism, labour and institutional politics using sheer layered fabrics and sewn text.

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Florence Yee

“Whitewashed,” 2019 (courtesy The New Gallery, Calgary)

In Whitewashed, a message on a garment bag hanging on a clothing rack reads: “They said I was whitewashed, but Chinese people only run dry cleaners.” Inside the bag is a white shawl resembling a pashmina. Playing on the interior and exterior aspects of the transparent garment bag, the messaging confronts tropes of Asian identity: What does it mean to be “whitewashed” when Chinese people are supposedly doing the laundering?

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Florence Yee

“A Labour of Labour,” 2018 (courtesy The New Gallery, Calgary)

Nearby, on a found comforter, polyester thread is hand-embroidered to create a series of repetitive lines on the white lining: “I work hard so / you don’t have to / I work hard so / you don’t have to / I work hard so / I work hard so / I work hard so / I work hard so / work hard so I …” The plain sans-serif typeface that resembles Helvetica, with its implied notions of efficiency and simplicity, emphasizes the labour that has gone into the stitching, in contrast to the meaning of the words, which recall a common intergenerational dynamic in immigrant families, where people work hard for the comfort of their kin. 

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Florence Yee

“Please Reply IV” (detail), 2019 (courtesy The New Gallery, Calgary)

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Florence Yee

“Please Reply” (detail), 2019 (courtesy The New Gallery, Calgary)

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In Please Reply, sheets of white organza pinned to the wall resemble a spread of pages. Interrogating the validity of academic labour and citational practices, Yee stitches text such as “chapter two: longing for the futile labour as process,” or on the next sheet, quotes American artist Julie Farstad: “there’s a sense of absurdity to sewing that i like – that determination to pursue this extreme manual labour that others might find pointless.” The lowercase stitched text challenges the authority of capital letters and correct punctuation. 

One of the most memorable pieces is Selected Hauntings, a series of sheer fabric panels hung high, creating a labyrinth one must enter to read the embroidered text. One says: “I learnt my family history through Wikipedia.” Another reads, “He yelled ‘go back to Chinatown’ / I finally belonged in Montreal.” 

You Listen Better to Echoes is a puzzling title for Yee’s surprisingly tactile, visual and textual installations. Perhaps the silence of the gallery is a reminder of the loneliness racialized artists can experience in institutions of art and learning, as well as a space for echoes, where process and palimpsest can offer uncompromising nuance and complexity. ■  

Florence Yee, You Listen Better to Echoes, at The New Gallery in Calgary from Jan. 14 to Feb. 12, 2022. 

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