熱鬧 (yeet nao)
Florence Yee and Joy Wong
Upcoming
熱鬧 (yeet nao) is a multi-channel sound installation that takes inspiration from the Cantonese expression 熱鬧 (yeet nao), meaning lively or hot and noisy. For many in the East and Southeast Asian diaspora, the sounds of mahjong tiles clicking together evoke a familiar and inviting comfort for family reunions. This installation of collaged field recordings has been adapted for MOCA and is presented in the South Stairwell. The work is one of a series of public programmes and interventions by members of the collective Tea Base, which will include live Mahjong Halls in the Museum in the spring, that respond to Michael Lin’s installation Archipelago. 熱鬧 (yeet nao) stands in stark contrast to the relative quietness of MOCA and the lack of being in relation to others during the state of lockdown during the fall and winter of 2020-2021. It also comes at a time when the collective Tea Base has been renovicted from the Chinatown Centre Mall. The artists add: “Although the isolation in our communities is (hopefully) temporary, this separation also speaks to the larger processes of assimilation across generations, loss of language, and rapid neighbourhood redevelopment that have impacted migrant communities across the continent.”
Florence Yee (born in 1996 in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto) is a Cantonese visual artist whose practice focuses on the intimacy of doubt through text-based art, sculpture and textile installation. Their work has been exhibited at arts spaces including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Centre A in Vancouver and at Art Mûr in Montreal. Yee is currently the Co-Director of Tea Base, a grassroots collective in Tkaronto’s Chinatown.
Joy Wong (born in 1991 in Tkaronto/Toronto, lives and works in Tkaronto/Toronto) is an interdisciplinary artist who works in painting, print media, sculpture and poetry. Their practice focuses on the intersections of decay and decadence, and connects material investigations with the shifting physicality of the body. Wong was a finalist for the 2018 RBC Canadian Painting Competition and was the 2019 Pope Artist in Residence at NSCAD.
Learn more about Tea Base’s residency at MOCA Toronto.