Christina Yao at Stride Gallery, Calgary
By Levin Ifko
Christina Yao, Real to Me, 2025, installation view (courtesy: the artist and Stride Gallery)
Christina Yao has had an abundant photography practice in Calgary for several years now. Local gallery-goers have come to recognize her images from the array of familiar faces she features to the distinctly colourful clothing and environments they are situated in. I’ve been aware of her work for a while, having seen her in exhibitions at the Alberta University of the Arts, at Contemporary Calgary, and as part of the EXPOSURE Photography Festival. Whenever I come across her installations, I find myself magnetically drawn into the relationships between the people depicted in her portraits. Oftentimes, this involves two figures in a domestic space, engaging with each other in a timid or even awkward way – as if they are attempting to understand each other and can’t quite figure out how.
Christina Yao, Real to Me, 2025, installation view (courtesy: the artist and Stride Gallery)
In Real to Me, Yao’s solo exhibition currently on at Stride Gallery, there is a range of this compelling photography on display. I actually recognize some of the photos from previous exhibitions, yet in this iteration the artist has experimented with her display mechanisms, showing her works printed on cotton and mylar, and integrating them into a heavily sculptural and installation-based exhibition. This sculptural-photography work is shown alongside wall-hanging images from the artist’s hometown in China, depicting indoor shops, back-rooms, kitchens, and domestic spaces. Filled with objects such as clothespins, laundry hangers, ribbons, and baskets, these images inspire this exhibition’s installation: Yao has chosen to use them as hanging mechanisms. The use of these objects compliments the narratives present in the photography. Relationships exist as a push and pull, a give and take, and a balancing act. They are all slightly precarious or uneasy relationships – such as the photograph draped over a plastic stool leaning on the gallery wall for support, or the translucent prints hanging only by a clothespin, warping and twisting slightly as I walk by.
Christina Yao, Real to Me, 2025, installation view (courtesy: the artist and Stride Gallery)
Yao is the first artist to showcase her work in Stride Gallery’s new space, and she is also the first to have an exhibition using the gallery’s new programming model. Stride now hosts twelve-week residencies in their in-house studio space, where each artist spends time making work that they then exhibit in the gallery following the end of their residency. It’s evident that Yao spent her time engaging with methods of display more specifically, bringing a new dimension to reflect upon when engaging with her work. This model is exciting, and through this exhibition I can see it demonstrating a broader need for similar programming that feels as relevant to emerging artists.
Christina Yao, Real to Me, 2025, installation view (courtesy: the artist and Stride Gallery)
There are also two video works in the exhibition. The first is a short that Yao shot during a recent trip to China. It builds upon her interest in close human relationships that balance the performance of oneself with the desire for closeness and intimacy. This work in particular, featuring family members and loved ones, also mirrors the complex relationships that one may have with their culture and home. Another video features clips of Yao from her time as the artist-in-residence, where she engages in a back-and-forth connection process in real time. Through silent video footage of Yao walking outside, speaking to passersby, and bringing them into the gallery to be photographed together, I’m brought into the messy, awkward, and shifting process of attempting to represent ourselves. I love that Yao has taken the risk of bringing strangers into this work, where relationships between people are forged in real-time through a process of nervous laughter and bonding over what can be an anxious art of posing in front of a camera lens.
Christina Yao, Real to Me, 2025, installation view (courtesy: the artist and Stride Gallery)
At the core of Yao’s show is her exploration of photography as a medium for figuring out our way through relationship building, through each awkward ask and strained silence. But do silences have to be this way? Or does going through this process, and speaking about it openly, actually make us closer? Rather, do we have to interpret these messy silences as strenuous? And can we instead lean into the fact that these are what also makes relationships real? As I leave the gallery, I think about how much can be done through the act of trying to bring other people into your life. I believe that this process, demonstrated by Yao, acknowledges these awkward pauses, fearful asks, and silences that are a point of entry into deeply knowing others.
Christine Yao: Real to Me continues until June 20.
Stride Gallery: https://www.stride.ab.ca/
The gallery is accessible.
Levin Ifko is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). They will talk your ear off about music, queerness, and media art. Mostly, they believe that art is an opportunity to connect with ourselves and our communities.