There is a Chinese idiom “to eat bitterness 吃苦.” It means to endure hardship and accept suffering as a part of life. The ability to tolerate and overcome difficulties is seen as a virtue and a badge of honour, and to some it is a fundamental part of the Chinese character. With the spike in anti-Asian racism in 2020 and 2021, Refuse to eat our bitterness, 2021, protests and rejects this age-old attitude. Refuse to accept humiliation and abuse, Karen Tam’s art tells us. Refuse to accept hate. Refuse to be submissive. Spit out the bitterness.

the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times (Banner), 2020, contains a line from a letter written by a wife left behind in China to her husband, who was working in Canada in the 1930s. In Chinese culture, chrysanthemums, which open only once a year, denote the passage of time. The text on the banner reminds this man that it has been twelve years since the couple has seen each other. In inscribing this deeply personal sentiment, Karen Tam draws attention to how this family’s story of sacrifice, separation, and longing was common among those experiencing political and economic turmoil in China who sought a better life abroad in the nineteenth a