Bound by Margins, Rested in Rivers: How artists write, visualize, perform, practice and theorize community-based artworks

Abstract

This paper accompanies my MFA thesis show, Bounded by Margins, Resting in Rivers, exhibited from April 16–25, 2025, at Gales Gallery, York University. It encapsulates an inquiry into how artists write, visualize, perform, practice, and theorize community-based artworks. Since 2022, I, alongside my mother, artist Zhu Dandan, have engaged with Ontario’s diverse neighborhoods, Richmond Hill, Scarborough and Toronto, working with 90 community members, primarily visible minorities, and immigrants, through our shared workshop series, Project Cocoon. Our workshops employ an object-biography approach, harnessing visual, audio, and collaborative art-making to amplify memory-making. The thesis show, featuring mixed-media installations, artist books, prints, and performances, embodies these narratives, while this paper articulates their conceptual and ethical underpinnings. Facilitation, I argue, is not neutral; it navigates power dynamics, institutional constraints, and ethical tensions. Rooted in the diaspora context, my practice prioritizes care, dialogue, and openness to the unknown, fostering a relational aesthetic that resists dominant frameworks. Together, the show and paper explore how community-based art gains legibility and integrity, weaving a living collection of shared resilience that bridges personal and collective experience.