MAY 1-4, CALGARY CENTRAL LIBRARY
FascinAsian Film Festival features immersive, multi-sensory works of nine emerging Calgarian Asian artists as they explore the essence of Being Bold. This exhibition weaves together sight, sound, and scent for a transformative artistic experience.
Artists have deconstruct Being Bold through their personal lenses, artistic risk taking and challenging inherited narratives.
Artist: ESK Rei
Title: Temptation or Transcendence | Year of the Snake 2025
Working primarily with sumi ink, charcoal and porcelain, EKS.REI’s style is informed by a fusion of calligraphy, tattooing and graffiti; playing with motifs in these practices to find vivid expression for his interest in philosophy, psychology, and East Asian mythology. The interplay of light and dark, east and west, negative and positive space take on greater thematic weight as he attempts to balance dualities he sees within nature, self, and psyche throughout his work.
Raised in Canada, the artist was immersed in Vietnamese traditions and customs to preserve ancestral heritage. Lunar New Year holds great significance in the artist’s household, honoring the 12 zodiac animals and their associated traits, mythologies, and omens. The year 2025 marks the “Wood Snake,” and this artwork challenges the snake’s often negative connotations, instead celebrating its auspicious qualities as a symbol of wisdom, rebirth, renewal, and transformation.
Scent: Inspired by the aroma of traditional incense burned in Buddhist monasteries and temples as a method to cleanse aura. Subtle notes of burnt sage and palo santo are complemented by bamboo ash to evoke a state of calm and reverie.
Artist: Emmanuel Ho
Title: 碰 (Pong!)
Emmanuel Ho was born in Montreal, Quebec and attended the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. He trained in Graphic Design and extended these skills to experimental animation early in his career. His short film and interdisciplinary media work have been screened around the world.
碰 (Pong!) is an experimental animation that interprets my experience of identity and language as a member of the Asian diaspora through the of lens of a games. The piece uses the iconography from mahjong—a game of strategy and luck-and fractures and reconfigures them randomly.
Scent: Lao Shang Green Tea. A tea we enjoy around the mahjong table.
Artist: Ethel Dalida
Title: Hard to Open Up
Ethel Dalida is a multidisciplinary artist living in Calgary, specializing in painting and illustration. She graduated with honors from the University of Calgary’s Visual Studies BFA program in 2015, received the 2010 art-a-thon Merit Award from Cardel Homes, and has exhibited throughout Calgary including cSPACE, the Nickle and Contemporary Galleries.
A tenacious young woman caught between polarizing modern and traditional family values wrestles with a dramatic shift in priorities after hearing news of her mom’s diagnosis. Based on true events.
Scent: Release stress and relax the nervous system.
Artist: Hanh Nguyen
Title: Woman (The floating rice cake)
Hanh Nguyen is an interdisciplinary artist from Vietnam based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary whose works focus on the relationship between physical material and the intangible essence of self. She explores her emotions and crises as a Vietnamese identity through her storytelling and digital art practice.
“Woman” is inspired by the iconic Vietnamese poem Bánh Trôi Nước (“The Floating Rice Cake”) by Ho Xuan Huong, which uses the image of a floating rice cake to symbolize the beauty and turbulent fate of women in feudal society-subject to external control yet retaining inner integrity. The artist did not initially grasp the poem’s depth until encountering Hoang Thuy Linh’s music video, where Linh’s powerful voice and traditional singing style vividly expressed sorrow and resilience. Motivated by this passionate interpretation, the artist created a multi-sensory art performance as a heartfelt response.
My body is white, my fate, softly rounded
Rising and sinking like mountains in streams
Whatever way hands may shape me
At center my heart is red and true
Scent: In Vietnamese culture, lotus represents the pure and resilient spirit. They may thrive in the mud but would always stand tall while blooming in the most vibrant color with a refreshing scent.
Artist: Jessica Cheng
Title: Shine Bright
Jessica Cheng is a second-generation Chinese Canadian artist, born and raised in Calgary to immigrant parents from Hong Kong. She holds a Bachelor of Design with a major in visual communications design from the University of Alberta. Her multidisciplinary practice spans graphic design, illustration, photography, papercraft, and upcycling. Cheng’s work serves as a means of communication, exploration, and connection.
Through a series of photos taken at the National Music Museum during the 2024 Mid-Autumn Festival, I capture the vibrant and bold traditional festive decor making its mark in the sleek and contemporary interior of the NMC. The coexisting, contrasting forms allude to the role of tradition within a contemporary society. On that day, tradition is proudly and boldly presented.
Scent: Two scent accompany this work: one light and fresh, the other bold and lingering. Both blend citrus, peach, or pear with warm, grounding base notes reminiscent of oolong tea.
Artist: Mao (Kun) Chen
Title: Sweet and Spicy
Mao (Kun) Chen is a visual artist and ceramicist whose work celebrates cultural identity, individuality, and self-expression. Inspired by East Asian Kawaii culture and female empowerment, she merges traditional craft with contemporary aesthetics. As Co-founder of Mao Projects, she creates vibrant, narrative-driven ceramics that bridge cultures, foster dialogue, and reflect her diasporic experience across Canada, the U.S., and Asia.
“Sweet and Spicy” explores boldness through the lens of ADHD, Kawaii culture, and diasporic identity. Blending playful motifs with unexpected materials and layered textures, the ceramic sculpture reflects neurodivergent thought and emotional complexity. Through multi-sensory layers, it reclaims cuteness as power and bridges East Asian and Canadian influences—inviting viewers into a journey of resilience, transformation, and self-expression.
Scent: A bold blend of contrasts—this scent opens with the crisp clarity of green tea and citrusy orange, softened by delicate lotus and grounded in sage. Beneath the sweetness, notes of cinnamon, coffee, and black pepper rise with intensity, balanced by the warmth of sandalwood.
Artist: Marissa Javier
Title: Rebirth in Reverie II
Artist, mother, and facilitator, I practice flow painting as a form of prayer, meditation, and transformation. Rooted in sculpture, dance, and light work my paintings honour relationships, grief, and joy. I teach intergenerationally through the YMCA and bring my practices as an Expressive Arts facilitator to deepen my commitment to creativity as a path to connection, wellbeing, and community healing.
Rebirth in Reverie II, is a celebration of my transformation to motherhood; completion, unity, joy, music, creatiand new life. Created during summer 2016, it is an energetic capture of a transformative time, memories, moments, experiences and unity of spirit in dancing colours. The second painting is in honour of my Father, Dr. Joseph Javier, our family and vibrant Filipino lineage. Mahal kita, Dad.
Scent: Rose petals and rose oil.
Artist: Rachel Hao Ran Li
Title: At the Confluence: Reclaiming Boldness in the Diaspora
Rachel Hao Ran Li is a Canadian Chinese artist, educator, and musician. Her work explores cultural identity, memory, and expression. Drawing from her lived experience in the diaspora, she blends traditional Chinese aesthetics with contemporary techniques to reflect resilience and the richness of belonging across multiple worlds.
This multisensory installation weaves linocut prints, audio, and scent to explore diasporic identity. Chinese vases adorned with Calgary landmarks, symbolic plants, and local fauna reflect a fusion of place and memory. A layered soundscape—trombone melodies and shifting conversations in Shundenese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English—reveals how one voice holds many selves across cultures, languages, and belonging.
Scent: A grounding blend of earthy Chinese tea leaves and crisp Canadian pine—symbolizing dual heritage, the calm of tradition, and the clarity of belonging across landscapes.
Artist: Ziya Lin
Title: Cocoon | Constrained Reach. To Be Held Back By…
Ziya Lin is a Calgary-based Chinese artist who primarily works in drawing and installation art. Her artistic practice draws inspiration from traditional Chinese art and culture, exploring the themes of identity, female subjectivity, diaspora and cultural memory. Lin completed her BFA at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China in 2014, and received her MFA from the University of Calgary in 2017.
These drawings reinterpret Shinu Tu (仕女圖), a traditional Chinese art form portraying women, through charcoal drawings on Xuan paper, manifesting the challenges and contradictions women face. Background audio recorded the drawing process, echoing unseen female labour. The drawing traces on Xuan paper’s delicate surface parallel the imprints life leaves on women’s bodies, marking each stroke as a quiet act of endurance.