Above still from barker&choy Phrasebook Vol. 4: Halifax Conversations. Local volunteers were paired up with Chinese nationals, new to Halifax, for 1-2 hour wide-ranging conversations. Follow up individual reflections could take any form desired by the participants. 

barker&choy

barker&choy is the artistic collaboration of Gerard Choy and Becka Barker. In their work together, they aim to unravel notions of nationality, identity, authenticity, and colonisation in transnational contexts. Relying on video, audio, live performance, synchronous and asynchronous online interactions, and installation, barker&choy works to enact the “disinvention” of languages, exploring relationships of linguistic exchange as sites for creative genesis.

After carrying out their first project in 2015, Phrasebook Vol. 4: Halifax Conversations, barker&choy presented their collaborative work Creative Impulse at the Universities Art Association of Canada (2016) and performed Phrasebook of Migrant Sounds Vol. 6: Victoria Park at Charlottetown’s Art in the Open festival in 2018. They will perform the second part of Vol. 6 (Queen) at Nocturne: Art at Night in October 2018.

New website, images, writing, and documentation for barker&choy to come later in 2018. Stay tuned!

Above: sample clip from Becka Barker's 2015 audio installation, How to Say. Full audio is available on the How to Say app for Android devices on Google Play store. 
 

Below: sample clip from Gerard Choy's 2010 Phrasebook of Migrant Sounds, Vol. 1. Video installation for Halifax's Nocturne: Art at Night.