If we say things simply is an index of the shades of yellow and gold found along East Pender Street. Presented in the Or Gallery’s window space at 236 East Pender, the work uses colour as a framework to speak about the yearning for clarity and understanding amongst a landscape of anxiety and uncertainty in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Phoebe Huang and Stephanie Gagne contend with what it means to research, produce work, and exist in the complexities of Chinatown, both as artists and residents of the area.

Amidst Chinatown’s existence as an entangled site—one of racialized histories, unceded land, the housing and opioid crises, capital redevelopments, and mounting anti-Asian violence— Huang and Gagne grapple with how to make sense of place when at a loss for words. If we say things simply emerges out of the desire for honesty in understanding the relationship and responsibility between place and person. It suggests that, when it is too difficult to speak, it may first be better to feel.

Accompanying the window installation is a brochure guide to the yellow and gold hues indexed along Pender Street. Using historical, personal, and fictional annotations, the brochure reveals new lines-of-sight that show previously unseen pathways through herbal stores and wet alleys. Navigating this sensory experience of colour asks for presentness and grounding in the body when feeling the paralyzing confluence of remnant past, turbulent present, and uncertain future.

Yellow and gold—colours rich in symbolic meaning (centeredness, prosperity, hope, abundance) and cultural coding (yellow peril, golden mountain)—give hints to a range of complex conditions, emotions, and predictions against the backdrop of Chinatown. Through a lexicon of yellow and gold, Huang and Gagne remind us “to find abundance and hope when we feel distant, overwhelmed, and when we don’t know where to start.”