Pick up in 10 – Joni Cheung (aka Snack Witch)

Exhibition: October 20 to November 4, 2023
Vernissage and artist-guided gallery tour: October 19 at 6 pm
“DTD? Down to Dumpling?” – Art Hive with Joni Cheung: November 4, from 10:30 am to 1 pm

How do descendents of diasporic communities connect with and support one another, even when separated by time and place?

PICK UP IN 10 is a shuffling through sensorial cues embedded within restaurants and domestic spaces. In this gathering of works, Snack Witch (Joni Cheung), uses the visual languages of the environments she grew up in to investigate the way objects retell and share the (hi)stories of her relations within physical and digital communities.

Through the suturing of fragments—ragged pieces of stories found in IRL (In Real Life) and virtual spaces—Snack Witch uses subtle humour and care to conjure up whispers to those who seek to soothe their own hunger for connection. Deliberate acts of disruption through text, time, memory, and space, hold and make room for those before and yet to come, to rest and ponder. They invite you to imagine what our futures could look like together, outside of these white walls.

Snack Witch Joni Cheung is a grateful, uninvited guest born—and knows she wants to die—on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh peoples. They are a Certified Sculpture Witch with an MFA from Concordia University (2023). She holds a BFA with Distinction in Visual Art (2018) from the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. As a wicked #magicalgirl who eats art + makes snacks, they have exhibited and curated shows, off- and online, across Turtle Island. Currently, she is based on the stolen lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples. They are a recipient of numerous awards, including the Research and Creation Grant: Canada Council for the Arts; the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship; was waitlisted for the SSHRC – Joseph-Armand Bombardier: Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship. Aside from art-making, Joni likes wandering down grocery store aisles and drinking bubble tea.

www.jonicheung.com