Records in the collection were created in 2024 over the October 26 and 27 weekend through the artist-led public program, Scent of Thunderbolts: Family Portrait Sessions, by artist Karen Tam, for her commissioned installation in the Toronto Biennial of Art.
Members of Chinese Canadian communities in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area were invited to participate in a family photoshoot within Tam’s immersive installation titled Scent of Thunderbolts 雷霆之息. Participants include members of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Portraits were taken by Toronto-based photographer, May Truong.
Scent of Thunderbolts used the form of a Cantonese opera to address Chinese diasporic sonic memory, drawing inspiration from archival collections, studio photography, and conversations with performers and community members to integrate reimagined elements from Cantonese opera, including props, stage settings, backdrops and furniture.
The family portrait sessions evoked the historic San Francisco photo studio, May’s Studio, that photographed Cantonese opera performers throughout the early-to-mid 1900s. The program invited participants to define what family and home meant to them through the act of having their photograph taken. They were asked to consider the meaning of “family” broadly, transcending immediate blood relations to include intergenerational extended families, chosen kin, and those with whom they shared home and time.
As part of Tam’s larger artistic practice and research, the collection of images had the expressed goal of being deposited in a community archive specializing in Chinese Canadian history, with participant consent.