Toronto-based artist and OCAD University alum Kendra Yee is beginning her term as the City of Toronto’s artist-in-residence in the quiet stacks of the City of Toronto’s archives.
For the first six months of her residency, Yee will be immersed in the archives, studying records, photographs, and ephemera that document the history of Chinese immigration in the city.
Her research will shape a temporary public art project, to be announced in 2026, connecting Toronto’s landscapes to its untold histories through the language of clay and memory.
“As an artist, one of the focuses within my practice explores the ways to materialize the truths and fictions of memory,” says Yee. “This city is my home. Its neighbourhoods have shaped who I am, allowing me to grow and build connections that continue to inform my work.”
Yee, who earned a Bachelor of Design in Illustration from OCAD U, is known for installations that blend personal histories with collective narratives.
Her connection to the topic of Chinese immigration is familial. Her great-grandfather immigrated to Canada during the Chinese Immigration Act (also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act), eventually settling in Saskatchewan.
“Taking inspiration from my family’s story, I want to understand how Toronto’s immigration policies shaped community, labour, and the cultural landscape,” she says. “With this project, I hope to inspire conversation and acknowledgment of experiences that may have been overlooked.”
In her current project, Yee will link archival materials to specific Toronto sites, tracing stories from the city’s past to its physical terrain. From these locations, she plans to harvest wild clay—a practice that symbolizes how memory, history, and land are intertwined.
Using fonds, photographs and records relating to the Chinese immigrant experience, Yee will connect archival materials discovered in the database to physical locations throughout the city.
Engaging with the assembled photographs, documents, maps and other objects, the memorabilia will lead to sites and networks where wild clay will commemorate untold experiences.
Throughout the residency, clay will be forged from places connected to the sourced archival materials. Located in urban and natural environments, refining, sampling and categorizing the found clay resembles techniques implemented to prepare a fond for the Archive.
“Clay inherently holds memory,” she explains. “Each layered coil carries movement and change, much like the way stories evolve over time.”
Her exploration of wild clay began during a residency at the Glasgow Ceramics Studio. Now she is studying Toronto’s own clay-rich history, including the clay depository sites at the Evergreen Brick Works and the landscapes throughout the Don Valley.
For Yee, time in the archives reminds her of being back in the studios at OCAD U—spaces of shared inquiry and creativity.
“Researching here has sparked many wonderful memories,” she reflects. “It reminds me of the importance of collaboration—it feels almost like participating in a collective act of remembering,” she says.
When unveiled in 2026, Yee’s public-facing project will invite Torontonians to explore and engage with histories that have often been overlooked, sparking conversation and connection around the city’s shared past.