Spring 2020

We were happy to work with Janet Wang, a visual artist from North Vancouver, as our first AFK Artist-in-Residence! Over four weeks in April and May, 2020, Janet created videos at home to share with all students and teachers across the North Vancouver School District.

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Janet Wang - BIO

Janet Wang is a visual artist and educator working within a traditional painting practice, integrated with sculptural installation practices and digital media. A second-generation settler of Chinese heritage, she is based in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia and her Master of Arts in Studio Practice from the University of Leeds in England.

Group Drawing

Artist Statement from Janet Wang

At the beginning of lockdown, I was thinking about all of us in our homes, looking out our windows, all separated from each other. We were all looking out at the same leaves unfurling on trees, hearing the same birds’ voices soaring over the hushed city, and seeing the bursts of colours of flowers along the streets, trails and gardens. I wondered, sitting at my window, whether these smaller signs of hope could be strengthened by connecting and layering with others’—and from here, the idea for this big group drawing was born.

What if we took our own small observations, and brought them together into something that swelled into a bouquet or a forest of drawings? We are stronger as collaborators, as community members, and as a city. This lockdown has shown us that art, whatever form it may take, is how we can all bring our voices together.

Each of the flowers, leaves and one bug (can you find it?) are from different student artists from across the Lower Mainland. These have been arranged into a radiating pattern block that has been repeated to create the larger composition. The message is one that has resonated from the resilience, the wobbly lines, the confident colours, and the ideas shared and communicated from the art we’ve been making in our homes. I have loved seeing each artist’s style and ideas communicated through the medium of art. Thank you for sharing your work!