Lily Cho is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at York University. As one of Canada’s first specialists in Asian Canadian literature and culture, her scholarship contributes to the establishment and advancement of Asian Canadian Studies.
Archival engagement in contemporary Chinese Canadian art is not merely aesthetic or documentary. Rather, it is a critical strategy that insists on remembering racial histories as central to understanding Canada today.
Cho’s research project explores how five contemporary Chinese Canadian artists — Morris Lum, Karen Tam, Howie Tsui, Kira Wu, and Shellie Zhang — use archival materials to confront and redress Canada’s histories of anti-Asian racism. Their work demonstrates how art and archives intersect to shape national memory and identity, not as passive reflections of the past, but as active interventions in the present. This is the first book-length study dedicated to contemporary Chinese Canadian art and is accompanied by a robust public scholarship initiative.
She also brings her work to the world through public lectures, events, and film and television appearances so that she can share stories of the contributions of Chinese immigrants to Canada culture and forge connections across communities in Canada and around the world.
From her research on Chinese restaurants in small town Canada, to her work on Chinese Canadian head tax certificates, to her investigation into contemporary Chinese Canadian art, Cho forges new paths in understanding how Chinese Canadian communities transform and strengthen Canada’s place in the world.