NAC installation explores cultural identity

Montreal-based artist Shelly Low serves up the NAC's latest intriguing art display, inviting audiences to come in and take a bite out of cultural stereotypes.
Self-serve, a photo and video-based installation, explores the common notions that people have of authentic or traditional - which can often lead to a warped perception of cultural identities.
Growing up, Low quickly came to understand about these preset stereotypes that exist in society.
"Both my parents worked in Chinese restaurants," said Low. "Eventually they opened up aChinese/Polynesian restaurant called 'La Pagode Royale' (The Royal Pagoda). I guess I find the association of food and cultural identity fascinating because as a kid, everyone at school thought I ate this type of food every night ... yet it was just as foreign to me because I had never tasted that kind of 'Chinese' food in my life."
Low completed an undergraduate and graduate studies degree at Concordia University before exhibiting her work across Canada. Since her background is mainly ceramics-based, her latest exhibit represents a new direction.
Self-serve focuses on the relationship between cultural identity and food, while encouraging discussion and a further understanding about cultural stereotypes.
"This installation sprang from a previous project in which I was exploring the idea of Chinese restaurants - how restaurant owners manufacture a cultural product by complying to and perpetrating certain stereotypes," said Low.
"It's a conundrum because in a sense, they are 'cooking up' notions of an ethnic or exotic 'other' based on folklore, nostalgia and myth. So in other words, serving Westerners what they expect Chinese culture to be."
The installation is a series of self-portraits in the form of light boxes, large format prints and photo montage.
"I use myself as the subject, in performance with the implements by which we consume, to explore the relationship between cultural identity and food," said Low. "As someone who crosses both sides of the Western / Eastern culture, this new work is a reflection of cultural stereotypes and self-representation, and in relation to the restaurant, I look at myself rather than the food."
The exhibit also includes two short videos of Chinese take-out menus to demonstrate certain aspects of the culture.
"In these videos, Chinese take-out menus are assembled and animated with light to explore some of the myths and folklore that are projected onto the names of current Chinese restaurants," she said.
In using herself as the subject, Low wanted to focus completely on the issue of cultural identity. Through the use of objects commonly tied to Chinese background, the display challenges the idea of what identifies any specific culture.
"I really wanted to focus on the question of cultural identity and the most logical subject to use was myself," she said. "I wanted to obscure my own identity with objects that were strongly associated as culture signifiers (chopsticks, Chinese soup spoons, take-out menus, etc.) to question what makes up a cultural identity."
Low finds Chinese food culture particularly intriguing because of its tendency to adapt and reflect the times.
"For instance, the '50s style Chinese restaurant with the kitschy neon signs, they are slowly disappearing in the larger cities and making way for more sophisticated palates that include dishes like sushi, pad thai and general Tao all under the same 'Asian' melting pot," said Low. "So in a sense, the more accepted different cultures are, the more homogenous they become."
Low has a separate exhibit of her work on display in the Art Gallery of Hamilton as part of a theme show on food, titled Feast: Food in Art, which includes a piece that has been named after her parents' restaurant.
With Self-serve, Low hopes to provoke thoughts about today's cultural society, while providing a forum for audiences to enjoy themselves and find common ground.
"I am hoping that [viewers] find the humour in it and something they can identify with," she said. "I think certain art can challenge [stereotypes] and sometimes help us see ourselves."
Shelly Low's Self-serve exhibition is on display at the Niagara Artists' Company until Dec. 17.