Noelle Lee

March-May 2023

Noelle Lee is an interdisciplinary artist of Fujian and Guangdong Southern Chinese descent, and has ancestry in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Growing up in Hong Kong, she was significantly shaped by urban colonial British influences, and by American-Canadian education and ideology. She is also formed by the decisions of the Communist Chinese Party who have caused renewed displacement in every generation of her family since her great-great grandfather.

She currently resides on the traditional unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. Her work focuses on migration, displacement, property, and land rights, honoring all human and non-human collaborators. She is a process-based artist using predominantly natural, land-based materials. She has contributed to two exhibitions titled Ocean Floatilla at Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, and All Souls Festival, an artist-led, non-denominational, annual event to honor our dead at Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery. She has worked for Full Circle: First Nations Performance, and was a part of the Talking Stick Festival Industry Series in 2022. She has also worked for Primary Colours/ Couleurs primaires, a multi-year arts initiative to place creative practices by Indigenous artists and artists of colour at the center of the Canadian arts system. She is currently working with Canada Council for the Arts to develop works addressing migratory displacement and cultural identity.

My time at SAR was a unique opportunity to get to know Keremeos, the Similkameen Valley and various local and international artists, I greatly value this experience both on a personal and professional level.

Noelle Lee, Testimonial