My artwork explores flora that I often find growing wild, which I use to create contemporary, botanical photographs and teach myself about their ethnobotanical functions, so I was immediately drawn to the Chinese herbalist shop and the Cedar Grove here at Burnaby Village Museum. As a mixed race person born and raised in Canada, I feel a lack of connection to my racial background. In that absence I have found that there are practices common to cultures all around the world that respond to place, such as the use of natural materials as medicine.

 

The front and back facades were created from photographs found in the Museum’s Way Sang Yuen Wat Kee & Co Herbalist shop collection of dried flora and fauna medicinal specimens vessels and tools used to store and prepare them.  My drawn pattern is Western red cedar, which holds significant value to BC’s Indigenous Peoples. The branches and green cones weave up and around the arch, enclosing you within it. 

 

The overall design was inspired from an actual herbal box currently on display at the Museum’s herbalist shop. I invite you to see if you can find it!