Title: Visual Diary (2020.3.18 – 2021.3.17)
Artist: Hua Jin
Curator: Debra Zhou
Duration: Nov 9 – Dec 28, 2024
Opening: Nov 9, Saturday 2-5pm
Venue: Canton-sardine, 071-268 Keefer St, Vancouver, Canada
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Fragments of Continuity: Nature’s Resilience in a Year of Stillness
By Debra Zhou
How many cycles of 365 days do we have in a lifetime? For Hua Jin, the passage of a year amid the global pandemic became a personal and collective meditation on change, resilience and belonging within nature. Her Visual Diary documents 365 days of observing the world around her—capturing the quiet persistence of clouds, flowers, trees, and flowing water—as she shared one photograph daily online, creating a space for calm and reflection.
For the artist, this project was a personal journey of healing, a daily ritual that provided solace and structure while Covid-19 spread across the globe. Making art every day under such circumstances was a challenge, but it was also a way of processing her thoughts and engaging with a world that felt increasingly uncertain. The start of this project coincided with March, the first breath of spring after six months of winter in Montreal, where Hua Jin is based. Her documentation of nature’s reawakening became an emblem of resistance against a virus’ threat to human society. On the other hand, it also reiterates that nature always finds a way to move forward. The journey continues with or without us.
In this exhibition, 45 works from the 365-day diary are presented. This choice is partly an adaptation to the gallery space, but it also introduces a poetic rhythm to how the works unfold, as the images are arranged in a non-chronological sequence. Each frame stands as a unique moment, but together they create a narrative that invites viewers to discover beauty and continuity beyond a linear progression of time.
Our relationship with nature is both intrinsic and estranged. The phrase “back to nature” implies a return to something lost, as if humanity’s role within the environment were somehow severed. This concept reverberates through Visual Diary, prompting us to reconsider our presence within, rather than apart from, nature. Through a visual language that is simultaneously gentle and monumental, Hua Jin captures nature as a reminder of our inherent connection with life’s cycles.
This deep-rooted connection echoes Carl Jung’s theory of the “collective unconscious,” which suggests that our yearning for nature and harmony is universal. Visual Diary brings us closer to that shared consciousness, highlighting imagery that transcends the personal to tap into shared, archetypal symbols of groundedness.
Through Hua Jin’s lens, nature’s beauty emerged everyday while we tried to survive a pandemic. At a time marked by anxiety, difficulties and separation, Visual Diary offers a meditative space for us to rediscover the elegance and steadiness that lies within life’s smallest gestures.
About the artist
Hua Jin is a visual artist born in China, currently living and working in Montreal, Canada. She earned a Master of Fine Arts (Photography) from Concordia University in Montreal and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography) from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver.
Her creative mediums span photography, video, and installation. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Canada, China, the United States, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Iceland. Her pieces are part of the Montreal Museum’s collection and are on long-term display in the museum’s Art of One World exhibition. Additionally, her large-scale photographic works were showcased at the Canadian Pavilion of Expo 2020 in Dubai. Hua Jin has held solo exhibitions at the Richmond Art Gallery, Vancouver’s 221A Art Center, and the Asia Pacific Foundation. She has participated in multiple residency programs and has won over 30 significant awards and grants, including the first Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts Award from the Montreal Arts Council, the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, and the Audience Choice Award at the Baie-Saint-Paul International Art Symposium. Her projects have received numerous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Quebec Council of Arts and Literature.
Hua Jin has also taught in the Photography Department at Concordia University in Montreal. Her works are held in numerous public and private collections, including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, the City of Montreal, the Montreal Arts Council, and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai.
CANTON-SARDINE 