Canada, the true north, strong and free, is home to many stories, with each person carrying their own meaning of the country. And young Canadian artists are expressing their layered identities through the power of art.  

Stella Obedi, a 23-year-old OCAD graduate and emerging artist, explores her Tanzanian Canadian identity with her artistic style. Born in Tanzania, she immigrated to Canada at nine years old.   

“I grew up in Canada, but then I was born in Tanzania, so I have to always think about these two identities.” 

In her thesis, Obedi expressed that she didn’t feel connected to Canada or to the idea of being Canadian, because she didn’t know what it meant.

Obedi used the Toronto Reference Library’s archive of images, such as the CN Tower and her own neighborhood, to research. 

“I was trying to understand what it’s like being Canadian through finding these archival images and putting them together, just looking at them, seeing the whole picture,” she said. 

Connecting cultures

Obedi is now focused on learning about her Tanzanian roots and connecting it with her Canadian identity. 

In her artwork, she uses metaphor to represent her dual identity. One art piece made with acrylic, charcoal, chalk pastel, color pencil and african wax fabrics on paper, titled “Conversations Together,” depicts her sitting down with her younger self, eating beans and plantains. A collage of archival images from Tanzania forms the background. 

In another piece made with acrylic, chalk pastel, charcoal, color pencil, and fabrics on paper,  titled “New Home”, Obedi recreated herself painting in a studio, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt underneath her apron. The background is of archival images from Canada. 

“I put those two against each other, and I’m trying to show you that you can be both. You can be from this country and still fit in with another country’s culture,” Obedi said. 

 Canada’s support for dual identities is rooted in its legislative frameworks. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 declares that everyone has the right to preserve and share their cultural heritage while simultaneously being a part of Canadian society. According to the 2021 Census, immigrants hold 23 per cent of Canada’s population. 

“I found a paper discussing how Canada doesn’t really have its own identity. It’s very multicultural, and that’s what I wanted to discuss in my work, that maybe being Canadian is just being you, just being able to bring your own culture into Canada and sharing it,” Obedi said. 

Another young Canadian artist works with traditional mediums, such as murals, paintings, and drawings. Enna Kim created a mural located at ​​Cinder Avenue in Toronto that emulates the way light shifts people’s faces depending on where it’s fixated. This represents the connection with her identity; her different phases and transitions. 

The 30-year-old new media artist was born and raised in Canada, and merges different mediums that encapsulates her identity of being Korean Canadian. 

“The technical troubles that you get by entering different mediums, like still images to video, to fabric, to installation, all these pieces that connect them is how I navigated being Korean Canadian,” Kim said. “I see it as different layers of who I am.” 

Kim especially loves combining traditional mediums with technology; projection mapping, and video. Through her perspective, merging both reflects the accumulation of how she feels within her identity between Korean and Canadian. 

‘Canadianness isn’t just one thing’

According to The fusion of traditional art and modern design: A path to cross-disciplinary innovation by Xiaoyi Lian, merging technology with traditional art practices can intensify cultural stories and symbols. It honors ancestral heritage and adapts to contemporary contexts all at once. 

Kim notes that some of the Korean folk art is not documented well, but that allows her to bridge the gaps between how she identifies the meaning of being Canadian.

“Canadianness isn’t just one thing, it’s a bunch of things,” Kim said. “Trying to understand my Korean culture through my Canadian lens is how I like to mix all those things, but also not sticking to that traditional sense … I love big, juicy, vibrant colours.”