Skip to content Skip to main navigation

Artist Talk: Ed Pien, An’xiong Qiu, and Xiaojing Yan

A program of:
If a Turtle Could Talk

Curated by Yuluo Wei
Tuesday, November 10, 7:30pm–8:30pm

Artists Ed Pien, An’xiong Qiu, and Xiaojing Yan in conversation with curator Yuluo Wei about the works featured in the exhibition If a Turtle Could Talk.

Ed Pien received a BFA from Western University and a MFA from York University. Pien has shown in venues that include the Drawing Centre, NYC; the Victoria & Albert Museum; The Canadian Culture Centre, Paris; The Goethe Institute, Berlin; Langage Plus, Alma; YYZ, Toronto; The Art Gallery of Ontario; Musée des beaux arts; Musée d’art contemporain; Oboro, Montreal; Axenéo7, Gatineau; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria; The Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon; Musée des beaux-arts, Montreal; Songzhuang Art Centre, Beijing; the National Art Gallery of Canada; and at MASS MoCA, Massachusetts. He has participated in the Montreal Biennale; the Sydney Biennale; the Moscow Biennale; the Beijing International Biennale, as well as the Curitiba Biennial, Brazil. In spring 2020, Pien will participate in the Bienal Internacional de Asunción, Paraguay.

Anxiong Qiu graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China and Kassel Academy of Fine Arts in Germany. His works in ink and wash animation are known for their profound and bleak contemplation on the relationship between man and nature, criticism of mass urbanization and environmental degradation. Qiu’s work has been shown and collected in venues including Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen Aken Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, Asia Society and Spencer Museum. His work has also been featured in mega exhibitions such as Sao Paulo Biennale, Sydney Biennale, Cairo Biennale, Thessaloniki Biennale, Asia Pacific Triennial Annual exhibition, Busan Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, and Guangzhou Triennial.

Xiaojing Yan is a Chinese-Canadian artist based in Markham, Ontario. She received her BFA from Nanjing Arts Institution, China and a MFA in Sculpture from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA. As an artist migrating from China to North America, both her identity and her work pass through the complex filters of different countries, languages, and cultural expectations. Yan has recently shown her work in art and cultural institutions in Canada and across the board that include Varley Art Gallery (Markham, 2017), Richmond Art Gallery (BC, 2018),  Art Gallery of Northumberland (ON, 2019), Toronto; Suzhou Museum (China, 2018), and Hermès Maison (China, 2019). Her sculptures have been commissioned and collected by venues such as Seneca College, City of Burlington, and ROM. 

The exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto.