When Emily Chu was five years old, drawing was more than just a pastime. She’d just moved from Beijing to Calgary and she didn’t know English. Her parents came to Canada for grad school, and she arrived later with her grandma who also only spoke Chinese.
It was a very isolating time, but art helped bridge some of the language barrier and loneliness, explains Chu, who is currently working on a graphic novel about a child’s perspective of the immigrant experience of coming to the prairies in the early ‘90s.
“I realized through the [writing] process … I was using art more as a first language to communicate and express myself. It’s just become a part of who I am.”
In 2011, she was working as a freelance commercial artist and she moved to Edmonton. Over the next decade, she grew connected with Chinatown. “I saw a lot of folks like us when I was young, and [my grandma and I] would just be safe in our own little bubble,” says Chu.
In 2020, she worried about the pandemic’s effects on the people and businesses in Chinatown, so she hosted six on-location sketching workshops and created a series of drawings thanks to a small art grant from Edmonton Arts Council (EAC). Then she put the proceeds into hiring another artist to create banners to display in shop windows, creating unity and vibrancy. This was the start of Chinatown Greetings, a fundraiser organized by Chu and Shawn Tse with yearly projects by local artists.
At the beginning of this year, Chu also started Togather Chinatown Art Fair to bring more people to the neighbourhood while encouraging artists of all backgrounds to participate.
In the past, Chu enjoyed creating commercial art, but community-oriented work fuels her. “I’m really grateful. I am getting hired to do things that are more authentic to me and things I want to explore.”
This article appears in the Nov/Dec 2024 issue of Edify
