Chinese Canadian Apology Public Art Project

Derek Chen is a public sector procurement and project management professional and a long-time community volunteer in Burnaby. Since 2014, he has served on the Burnaby Intercultural Planning Table’s Immigrant Advisory Council, contributing to initiatives that promote immigrant inclusion, intercultural dialogue and civic engagement. He participated in Burnaby’s Community Dialogue for Chinese Canadian Reconciliation, which informed the City’s official apology for historic discrimination against people of Chinese descent. He also served as a Multilingual Ambassador for Burnaby’s 2050 Official Community Plan to help shape the city’s future. Fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, Derek is passionate about connecting people across cultures and generations. He believes public art can preserve history, foster understanding and inspire meaningful conversations. He is honoured to help create a lasting legacy that recognizes the experiences and contributions of Chinese Canadians while promoting learning, reflection and reconciliation.

Larry Chin (he/him) is a professional photographer and active volunteer for cultural organizations who leads heritage initiatives in Vancouver Chinatown. Born in East Malaysia, he immigrated to Canada during his formative years in the 1980s. He is of Hakka Chinese ancestry and a proud Hakka speaker which keeps him deeply connected to his heritage, cultural roots and the generations that came before him. A longtime Burnaby resident, he is a passionate community historian devoted to uncovering and sharing the stories of Chinese Canadian heritage. He develops and leads immersive and engaging guided walking tours including Chinese Societies with Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Wonder Walk with Chinatown Wonders, and Hidden Gems of Central Burnaby with Burnaby Village Museum. An award-winning filmmaker, he has directed/co-directed documentaries which have been featured in several high-profile museums and cultural institutions in Vancouver and Victoria.

Steven Dragonn is a visual artist and curator whose artistic practice is informed by Conceptualism and Neo-Hyperreal Pictorialism. His curatorial interests include individual experience, immigration of minorities, identities, as well as social and political concerns. His practice involves a wide range of forms, including photography, video, sculpture and new media art such as immersive installation, video installation, image-sculpture and digital art. Steven currently works as an independent curator and multimedia artist in both Vancouver, Canada and Guangzhou, China. He founded Canton-sardine, an artist-and curator-driven contemporary art space established in Vancouver. Since 2018, Canton-sardine has showcased works by a wide range of national and international artists and collectives.

Lin Li (they/them, she/her) is a writer, art administrator and independent curator based in Vancouver, on the ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Their curatorial interests encompass a variety of topics, such as the decolonization and decentralization of Asian art, the identity crisis of individuals in an age of globalization and digitalization, and the contradictory, interconnected relationship between art and technology. As an art administrator, they currently coordinate the Deer Lake Artist Residencies at the City of Burnaby.

As an art writer, Lin’s reviews, interviews and essays have appeared in Border Crossings, Momus, Galleries West, Reissue Magazine, Akimbo Art and Yishu Magazine. They hold a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Alberta.

Hong Yan (Melody) Pan settled in Burnaby as a new immigrant back in 1998. She served as a registered nurse at Burnaby Hospital for more than 13 years, specializing in critical care, and currently serves as a community nurse and reservist with HMCS Discovery in the Royal Canadian Navy. A doctoral candidate in organizational leadership in health administration, Melody is passionate about preserving the stories and contributions of Chinese Canadians through arts, history and heritage. She volunteers with the Chinese Canadian Military Museum and the Chinese Canadian Museum in Chinatown and works closely with other local Chinese Canadian organizations. Drawing on both her lived experience and community involvement, Melody is committed to advancing anti-racism through education, heritage preservation, public engagement and cross-cultural dialogue. She is grateful to the generations whose courage and perseverance helped advance equal rights and opportunities. In their honour, she continues to advocate for equity, inclusion and social justice while inspiring future generations to celebrate diversity and strengthen community connections.

Lisa Wong has been a resident of Burnaby Heights for nearly 40 years and appreciates everything the city has to offer. Following a fulfilling career in the local fashion industry, specializing in design and product development, she continues to immerse herself in creative pursuits.

Lisa is excited to join this committee and help shape this public art project. The initiative is deeply meaningful to her: she is the daughter of the late Gim Wong, a WWII veteran and activist who led the 2005 Ride for Redress. Knowing how much this project would have meant to her dad, she is honoured to help build a respectful space for community healing.

Viahsta Yuan is a curator based between Vancouver and Burnaby, Canada, and China. She is the co-founder and chief curator of CICA Vancouver, a non-profit contemporary art gallery dedicated to fostering connections between local and international art communities. Since co-founding CICA in 2021, she has curated exhibitions with internationally recognized artists, including James Turrell, Hajime Sorayama, Javier Calleja, James Jean, Chris Huen Sin Kan, Daisy Parris, and Ayako Rokkaku. Her curatorial practice focuses on cross-cultural dialogue, public engagement and expanding access to contemporary art through exhibitions, education programs and institutional partnerships.

Yuan has championed Asian diasporic and contemporary Chinese art through exhibitions such as Reverse Chinatown, which examined cultural memory, identity and personal experience within Vancouver and New York’s Chinatowns. She has also curated debut exhibitions for Chinese contemporary artists in Canada, including Allegory: Chen Wenling Solo Exhibition, Fable and the Prophet: Xiaolu Yang Solo Exhibition and Legend of a Collection, a group exhibition featuring renowned artists including Wang Tiande, Chen Danqing, Cai Guo-Qiang, and others. Through these projects, she continues to explore how Asian diasporic and contemporary Chinese art can generate meaningful dialogue across local and international audiences.

Muhan Zhang is a queer arts worker, producer and creative. She grew up the eldest daughter of Chinese immigrants on the unceded and stolen territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ peoples. As an artist, Muhan ties Chinese knots to make jewellery, charms and site-specific installations that explore knots as symbols of both unity and tension, celebration and discord (@mujiejewelry). As a film and events producer, she has worked on the Vancouver Queer Film Festival from (2020-2025), the documentary web series Long Live Kings (2025), and its forthcoming sequel $3 Bill (2027). She is currently the Marketing and Communications Associate at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver. Muhan studied Art History and East Asian Studies at McGill University and received a Master of Arts in Visual Arts Administration from New York University.

Sarah Ling is a Chinese Canadian cultural worker, documentary filmmaker and community historian. She has contributed to many pioneering public history initiatives in Vancouver and is committed to community-engaged research on Chinese Canadian and First Nations intercultural histories. She was the lead producer of the award-winning film All Our Father’s Relations. She is currently directing China Lily Nation. She is the co-founder of Chinatown Wonders, an initiative that supports creatives from across the Chinese diaspora and offers experiences rooted in history and heritage. Sarah volunteers as President of the British Columbia Historical Federation and as a Director for the Vancouver Historical Society. Born and raised in Prince Rupert on Ts’msyen territory, Sarah resides in Vancouver on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples. She holds a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia.