Jenny Yujia Shi
施雨迦

Jenny Yujia Shi 施雨迦  is a Chinese Canadian visual artist based in Kjipuktuk. Growing up in a historic neighbourhood in the heart of Beijing, Shi was immersed in intergenerational teachings, childhood mischief, and folklore of ghosts and spirits until ​an urban renewal project​ flattened their neighbourhood, displacing local residents and connections.

In 2009, Shi ​began a ​fourteen-year​ immigration process transitioning from an international student to Canadian citizenship. From the moment Shi passed through the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) processing center at Toronto Pearson Airport, their lived experience became subject to various conditions, permissions, and restrictions. These parameters regulated Shi’s movements and activities within the country, shaping the opportunities they could access to establish a livelihood.

Channeling a state of being: ungrounded and unable to land, Shi explores themes of displacement, dispossession and diasporic longing through mixed media drawing, site-responsive installation, community-based research and handmade animation. Most recently, Shi has begun revisiting their personal immigration archive and childhood folk​lore to e​xamine place, memory and agency in the context of border crossing and migration.

Shi's work has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, the National Film Board of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Recent exhibition highlights include solo exhibition at The Rooms (NL) and group exhibition at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (PE). Recent screening highlights include CBC Gem, the GIRAF Festival of Independent Animation and the Atlantic International Film Festival. Their work is included in collections of the Nova Scotia Art Bank, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the RBC Royal Bank.