Vancouver, March 30, 2020 Attack, 2020
Karen Tam, Vancouver, March 30, 2020 Attack, 2020, from the Ruinscape Drawings series, pencil on Strathmore, 30.48 x 22.86 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montreal. Photo credit: Karen Tam.
This depiction is based on video surveillance of an assault on a ninety-two-year-old Asian man with dementia at a convenience store in East Vancouver in March 2020. The image shows the elderly figure lying on the ground while the much larger perpetrator aggressively stands over his body. Part of Karen Tam’s Ruinscape Drawings series, with this work the artist documents recent incidents of anti-Asian violence; as well, she processes her own anger and fear. In doing so, Tam reveals how the current prevalence of anti-Asian attacks is part of an extensive history of violence and discrimination that began with the arrival of the earliest Chinese immigrants to the West Coast in the nineteenth century.
Gallery
Refuse to eat our bitterness, 2021
金山夢 Gold Mountain Dreams (Flag), 2021
Marquis of Lorne Arch, 1882
A good reputation endures forever 流芳百世, 2021
C.S. Wing Studio, 2020
Unidentified Chinese Man Lighting a Cigarette, pre-1929
the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times (Banner), 2020
Le Parc de la Pagode (Montréal), 1978, 2020
the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times (Audio), 2020
Coin-Suit, 2021
Armour Vest for female warrior, 2012
Wood slat and rod body armour, 2012
Ruinscape (Wallpaper), 2020
After the 1907 Chinatown Riots in Vancouver, 2020
Chinese Arch on Pender St. (Vancouver), 1912, 2020
Victoria Chinese Public School, June 5, 2020, 2020
56-58 Elizabeth St., Toronto, 1937, 2020
March 30, 2020 Attack, 2020
Longevity to Our Elders, 2020
Celebration in Nanaimo Chinatown, n.d.
Success to the Revolution, 2021
From Yiwu to you, 2015–present
From Yiwu to you (detail), 2015–present