Strange Fire

Q&A: Shellie zhang

By Lodoe Laura | March 19, 2020

Shellie Zhang (b. 1991, Beijing, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Canada. By uniting both past and present iconography with the techniques of mass communication, language and sign, Zhang’s work deconstructs notions of tradition, gender, identity, the diaspora, and popular culture while calling attention to these subjects in the context and construction of a multicultural society. She is interested in exploring how integration, diversity and assimilation is implemented and negotiated, how this relates to lived experiences, how culture is learned, relearned and sustained, and how things are remembered and preserved.

In this interview for Strange Fire Collective, Zhang speaks with Lodoe Laura about the process behind some of her work, her relationship to kitsch, and the role of collaboration in her practice.

Lodoe Laura: I thought we might start this conversation by discussing the series that introduced me to your work. I saw Accent at Y+ Contemporary in Scarborough, Ontario in 2017. In the series, you take an extended look into the cultural history of monosodium glutamate—MSG—, and the deeply racialised popular discourse surrounding its use. The series is made up of several works: A Visual History of MSG Marketing, a grid of photographs of MSG packaging; I Can’t Believe It’s MSG, an artist’s multiple that takes the form of a small bag of MSG; and No MSG, which reproduces perhaps the most iconic symbol of the flavour enhancer—the neon sign. Can you tell me about your initial interest in MSG as a topic, and how the series came together?

Shellie Zhang: I initially became curious about the history of MSG after stumbling upon a shaker of it in the back shelf of a convenience store. The lonely shaker looked like a relic preserved from another time and proudly declared itself as MSG on the packaging. I became interested in the circumstances which allowed this object to exist and what changed which resulted in it having to go into hiding. This led me to start collecting and searching for MSG containers from different brands in an effect to survey what the global consensus about this substance was. I was particularly focused on learning about perspectives outside of North American. A Visual History of MSG Marketing was created from my eventual collection which includes containers from China, Taiwan, Japan, America, Korea, Canada and Indonesia. A lot of the recently created brands in Canada also had ties to diasporic Caribbean and South Asian cuisines. The containers were acquired from ebay, online forums, and sourced locally. The earliest one I have is from the 1930s. What their collective presence proved is that at one point, MSG was once fully embraced, even so far to be recommended to be used as a third shaker in addition to salt and pepper. Another local project I did was creating a cookbook with recipes from the Toronto Star which called for MSG. From here, I started to wonder where the public perception of MSG all went south. 

Although MSG is not exclusively used in Chinese cuisine, it is usually only Chinese or East-Asian restaurants that use the ubiquitous “No MSG” phase in their marketing. I had worked in Chinese restaurants during my teens and early twenties. The phrase “No MSG” was commonly heard, though I didn’t question it at the time. The supposed symptoms people would feel after eating MSG was also dubbed “The Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” for a while. 

I won’t get into it here, but Dr. Ian Mosby’s article, That Won Ton Soup Headache talks about MSG’s highly racialized past and how the antagonization of the substance is linked with racist and xenophobic ideas around Chinese food/people. No MSG is modelled after a MSG neon sign at a former Toronto Restaurant named Lee Garden. When seen at night, the sign and space of the restaurant faded into the background as this neon sign shone. I started to think about how far Chinese restaurant owners had to go to convince diners that they were safe to eat at, or in turn, safe to trust. 

I Can’t Believe It’s MSG was a direct response to questions I would hear about my research into the subject. Most folks, including myself at the early stages of the project, did not know what MSG was in a physical form. After I collected all the MSG containers, I decided to play off this contraband perception and make something that looked half like something you’d see in a grocery store spice rack, and half like a dime bag. These were available to take when first shown at Y+.

I’ve recently been reflecting on this project in relation to COVID-19 being dubbed the ‘Chinese Virus’ by Trump. The World Health organization warned him that associating the virus with ethnic groups could (and has) led to racial violence against those of Chinese (and East-Asian) descent, but the way that the term is being employed by him and justified by his administration in rhetoric is a tactic to deflect blame onto Asian communities as the carriers of this virus while avoiding the harm and lack of appropriate response from his team.    

The ‘Chinese Virus’ is part of a long history of racializing disease and relegated disease to the “other”.  In 1875, San Francisco officials incorrectly blamed the smallpox, leprosy and malaria crisis on the city’s Chinatown by claiming they “disregarded our sanitary laws”. In 1906, Orange County’s Chinatown was torched and burned down while city officials did nothing, citing disease and threats to public health as the rational. We saw this more recently in the 2003 SARS outbreak. Health policy researcher Matthew Lee pointed out that this has historically extended to Jewish, Irish, Haitian, Mexican and West African communities as well.

When COVID-19 first hit Wuhan and parts of Asia, the concern in Canada was relatively minimal in contrast to today, but Chinese businesses and Asian peoples were starting to feel the surge of displaced fear. Chinese restaurants saw their numbers drop and took efforts to assure their clientele that they adhered to the strictest hygiene standards. Even as the virus hit Italy and parts of Europe, I did not see restaurants serving cuisine from these parts of the world putting up signage to justify their business practices. Comparatively, although Italian food contains a high amount of MSG from the use of tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, I have never seen a NO MSG sign in Italian restaurants. The question of who has to justify their credibility to the general public stems from a question of who bears the burden of being untrustworthy.

LL: Looking at the products in A Visual History of MSG Marketing, what strikes me is the prominent and repetitive use of the colour red in the merchandising and packaging of MSG. Was this something you noticed was consistent across the products your found through your research, or did you find yourself selectively collecting based on this colour?

SZ: This wasn’t an intentional choice when collecting the packages but a pattern I also noticed afterwards. Red and yellow are often the colours used for food marketing and they’ve been proven to boost sales in market research. You’ll often find fast food logos in red and yellow. On the other side, I chose a blue background because blue is used in colour psychology to evoke a sense of trust. Banks, universities and health corporations use it frequently in their branding.

LL: One of your projects that is, at least superficially, about colour and pattern is Aesthetic of Surfaces. Can you tell me how you got interested in the floral patterns in objects for sale in Toronto’s Chinatown? 

SZ: The series takes its title from Towards an Aesthetic of Surfaces, the introduction essay from the 2015 Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition, China Through The Looking Glass. In this essay, curator Andrew Bolton cites Barthes’ Empires of Signs, written after his trip to Japan where he found the cultural signifiers so beguiling and satisfying, that he did not feel compelled to understand their meaning. Similarly, Bolton asks viewers to consider China as a collective fantasy in the context of the exhibition. After seeing the show at the Met, I wanted to explore whether or not those who have lived with the markers of Chineseness and Chinese femininity would be able to look at the show from a formalist and historical perspective that overlooks the bodies that they most impact. 

Around the same time, China became more and more of a presence in the global economy and Luxury brands began targeting the 1% of this demographic in their wares. Louis Vutton, Chanel, Dior—the same brands that were on display in China Through The Looking Glass—were producing goods and campaigns specifically targeting Chinese folks in the mainland and the diaspora. This was different than the retrospective that the Met presented as the clothing in this show wasn’t necessary produced with Chinese consumers in mind. A big marker of this shift in audience came during Lunar New Year, when limited edition items made for this holiday that was majorly celebrated by East Asians was released.

I started the project by collecting things from Chinatown that bore floral brocade silk to draw a comparison between items found here and items found in say, the Met or Prada, to look at what defines luxury, what defines kitsch, and who is able to make these claims. 

LL: What is your relationship to kitsch?

SZ: When I first immigrated to North America, I lived in the US and our family had very little. We also moved around constantly. I developed this tendency in my childhood to visibly display everything I owned—as if somehow seeing everything I owned in sight at once made me feel more secure. I would make elaborate displays with shopping bags, toys from garage sales and trinkets I collected. In retrospect, surrounding myself with familiar things was a manifestation of my desire for stability. Kitschy items have always made me feel at home. 

I also believe that forms of kitsch can supersede the class boundaries. Counterfeit goods, knock-off sneakers, bold gaudy colours, materials and prints possess the power to usurp cultural value that is generally reserved for the upper class.   

LL: Do you feel like you’re still doing that in a way? The work you make is so often embodied through objects.

SZ: By looking at the things that we surround ourselves with, how they came to be and how they function, objects can generate nuanced reflections about people. I’m always collecting and amassing things as this is my means of gathering information. In this sense, when I take photos of the things I’ve collectioned, I am presenting data—the existence of these objects are evidence of a maker, user, buyer, and a need or a want. 

I also think of objects and their associations with bodies, identities and individuals. Women are forced to content with objectification early in life and racialized women are objectified in ways that magnify a perceived otherness. There’s something interesting about looking at a thing because while people perform, things don’t. The fact that things can exist in a state of just being and a result of circumstance is freeing to me. In some situations, I think of my images are portraits. I’m interested in things that I share projected affinities with and the strange sense of belonging and comfort they bring that isn’t defined by Capitalist notions of how we value objects. 

LL: Can you talk about your strategies of incorporating text into your work?

SZ: I’m interested in using words to make a prevalent tension, whisper or awkwardness visible. Sometimes this is done in conjunction with motifs taken from familiar signs or from vernacular phrases.  

LL: Lastly, I’m really interested in the role of collaboration in your artistic work. 

SZ: Almost every project/artwork I’ve made is also underscored by conversations and collaborations with friends, family, curators, installers, and designers. I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with artistic collectives such as EMILIA-AMALIA and Angry Asian Feminist Gang. Recently, I’ve been working with a number of artists, architects, writers, business owners, and community activists to form Friends of Chinatown Toronto (FOCT)—a grassroots group that aims to resist displacement and build community power in Toronto’s West Chinatown. 

There’s a Chinese proverb that states “A single tree does not make a forest, a single string does not make music” (独木不成林,单弦不成音). It really does take a village to learn, mobilize and create. As someone who has the privilege of making work as an artist, I have a lot of responsibilities towards the communities that teach me and care for me. If I wasn’t creating work for them, with them, I probably wouldn’t be doing it at all.