03 - Kiona Ligtvoet x Florence Yee

Seeking

Seeking, created by Kiona Ligtvoet and Florence Yee for the MAG Exchange Artist Mentor program, is inspired by Nadia Myre’s Want Ads, in which she spray-painted graffiti slogans seeking personal connections in the streets of Vancouver in the 1990s.

Kiona and Florence have a common interest in text and its ability to convey desires in a playful manner. Through their collaborative project, they will create a series of posters and bring them into the physical world as well as adapted “real” ads on Kijiji.

These short and succinct posters allude to other discussions the mentee-mentor team has been having about seeking community, traditions, memories, feelings, justice...

You can find these posters throughout Kiona and Florence's respective communities as well as documentation of the process on the MAG's social platforms and the official Mentorship website.

Listen to Kiona and Florence's artist talk here

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, a cabin by the lake for my mom" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, a willingness for reparations" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

The poster that reads "Seeking, a ride to moshom's" is stapled to a telephone poll outside of what appears to be a large house

Posters and photo courtesy of Kiona Ligtvoet

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, a place to feel queer" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, 2 strong guys to move a monument" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

The poster that reads "Seeking, a place to feel queer" is stapled to a poster board outside a busy street that is undergoing construction

Posters and photo courtesy of Florence Yee

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, other displaced Indigenous prairie folks" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, more community postering" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, a non white saviour??" in black thick marker, with a black border around it is taped to a light pole outside a downtown street

Posters and photo courtesy of Kiona Ligtvoet

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, pictures of Toisan" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

Posters and photo courtesy of Florence Yee

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, something better" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, one more day with my childhood dog" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, an archive that has me in it" in black thick marker, with a black border around it is stapled to a poll outside

Posters and photo courtesy of Kiona Ligtvoet

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, public displays of affection" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

The poster that reads "Seeking, public displays of affection" is stapled to a tree near a busy downtown road

The poster that reads "Seeking, a time to do this again" is stapled on a poster board outside a public park

A handrawn poster that reads "Seeking, a time to do this again" in black thick marker, with a black border around it

Posters and photo courtesy of Florence Yee

MENTEE

Kiona Ligtvoet (she/her), is a Cree-Métis artist from Michel First Nation, currently practicing in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, or so-called Edmonton . She primarily works in painting and printmaking, referencing her familial and cultural lines. Ligtvoet received her diploma in Fine Art from MacEwan University in 2017, then attended the University of Alberta to complete her BFA. Recently, she showed in the exhibition Kiona Ligtvoet at Parallel Space, and has been working alongside other artists in Latitude 53 and Mitchell Art Gallery’s, Writing From Here. Ligtvoet is currently interested in exploring a non-linear telling of memories through narrative work, drawing from feelings of displacement within her own indigenous identity.

MENTOR

Florence Yee is a 2.5 generation, Cantonese-struggling visual artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Their interest in Cantonese-Canadian history has informed an art practice examining diasporic subjectivities through the lens of gender, racialization, queerness and language. Notable exhibitions include Sino(n)-Québécoise? at Centre Never Apart and Le Salon at Articule, as well as exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2020), the Gardiner Museum (2019), Centre A (2019), A Space (2019), Art Mûr (2018), and the Karsh-Masson Gallery (2017).

They have participated in residencies at the Gay Archives of Quebec, the John and Maggie Mitchell Art Gallery, La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, the Ottawa School of Art, and the Fine Arts Reading Room. Along with Mattia Zylak, Yee co-founded The Institute of Institutional Critique™ in 2019. They are currently the Co-Director of Tea Base, a grassroots collective in Tkaronto’s Chinatown run by queer East and Southeast-Asians. They obtained a BFA from Concordia University and a MFA from OCAD U. They are represented by Studio Sixty-Six.

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