[Le français suit] “The work is part of a project titled 'Travelers Came with Hope' firstly presented at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver. The project aims at revisiting a distant past through the representation and interaction of archival objects and images. […] An Egg Boiler, a Branch and a Clay contains three different objects to elaborate on the potential of a vague narrative which looks into the distanced past with three different types of traces: imprints, specimen and reproduction. This combination was displayed in a somber environment, and its colour arrangement is reduced to minimal. The construction of its potential interpretation invokes certain illegibility which refers to the loss or the lack of preservation and history of some people’s past. The object of the egg boiler, part of the Chung Collection, was from the first Empress of Japan (1891) – a ship that regularly traversed the trans-Pacific route between the west coast of Canada and the Far East until 1922. Each boiler may be timed for 1-, 2-, or 3-minute eggs. This boiler was salvaged from the ship when it was dismantled on the North Shore in 1928.” – CCW


Chih-Chien Wang was born in Taiwan and has lived in Montreal since 2002. He completed a master’s degree in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University, where he has been an assistant professor in photography since 2018. He has presented solo exhibitions at numerous institutions such as Kunstlerhaus Bethenien (2016), the Fonderie Darling (2015), the Musée régional de Rimouski (2013), the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal (2012), and several group exhibitions, notably at the Quebec Triennial at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions include Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto (Montréal, 2025) and National Gallery of Canada (2025-2026) and McGill University Health Centre (2026). Wang’s work has entered important collections such as the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, the National Gallery of Canada, Hydro Quebec, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Global Affairs Canada, Caisse Desjardins, Caisse de dépôt et placement, the Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, Giverny Capital, BMO Financial Group, City of Montreal and Canada Council Art Bank. The Canada Council of the Arts awarded Wang the 2017 Duke and Duchess of York Prize in photography and received in 2020 the Prix Louis-Comtois given by the City of Montreal and AGAC.

___


Cette oeuvre a été conçue dans le cadre de l'exposition collective «Reshaping Collections», au Chinese Canadian Museum du 25 septembre 2024 au 28 septembre 2025. September 25, 2024 to September 28, 2025. Pour cette exposition, le musée a commandé à six artistes — Morris Lum, Karen Tam, Howie Tsui, Chih-Chien Wang, Janet Wang et Stella Zheng — à réinterpréter des objets historiques et culturels ainsi que des matériaux qui explorent l'identité canadienne. Ils ont été équipés de technologies portatives de numérisation 3D de pointe afin de rechercher et de reproduire certains objets parmi plus de 25 000 pièces historiques rares et uniques conservées dans la collection Chung des livres rares et collections spéciales de l’UBC.