Petrina Ng: Even The Most Beautiful Morning Cannot Bring Back The Evening

About

Open Source Gallery presents Even The Most Beautiful Morning Cannot Bring Back The Evening, a new collaborative exhibition developed by five Toronto-based artists/designers, and organized by artist Petrina Ng.

The exhibition’s title, Even the most beautiful morning cannot bring back the evening, is a (perhaps poor) translation of a Chinese proverb, and utilized here to refer to cultural loss by means of colonialism and migration. The proverb offers a contrary perspective to its western and more optimistic counterpart, “it’s always darkest before dawn”.

In this exhibit, Anne Campbell, Petrina Ng, and Rachel Wallace share their latest collaboration: an editioned set of hand-cast, ceramic mahjong tiles. Featuring calligraphy by Alice Liang, the tiles have been reimagined from a contemporary and diasporic perspective. Community members are invited to take part in game play.

Christie Carrière and Florence Yee’s publication, Mahjong, here, there, now, always, offers socio-political insight into the game’s East/Southeast Asian origins and community-rooted legacies. Re-published by small press Durable Good, this booklet also doubles as an instruction manual for learning to play.    

—

Petrina Ng (she/her) is an artist and organizer. Her collaborative practice proposes alternative responses to redress legacies of colonialism. She is a member of arts collectives Gendai, Waard Ward, and with Rachel Wallace, co-founder of arts publisher Durable Good.

Anne Campbell is an artist who works in ceramics and sculpture.
Christie Carrière is a visual artist.
Rachel Wallace is a graphic designer and visual collaborator.
Florence Yee (they/he) is a visual artist and co-founder of Chinatown Biennial.