Lunar New Year: Meet Freda Chiu
January 20, 2022 /
SBS Learn and artist and educator Freda Chiu created an art activity to help children, families and educators around the country celebrate Lunar New Year.
Participants will be able to make their own unique Chinese lucky charm (pictured above) using the Chinese character for ‘Tiger’ using a mix of drawing, painting and illustration skills. Click here for a step-by-step video guide showing how to create this on SBS Learn (available in six languages: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Vietnamese and English).
SBS Learn caught up with Freda recently to find out a bit more about the person behind the art.
How did you get into art?
Drawing has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My late Por Por (Grandmother) was an exhibiting fine artist in Hong Kong, so my parents had great respect for the visual arts and creativity was highly encouraged at home. Watching hours of Cantonese-dubbed Japanese animation on VHS tapes such as Sailor Moon, Doraemon and My Neighbour Totoro inspired hours of copying drawings of my favourite characters. I often like to think that this is where my formal art learning started!
Being surrounded by my Por Por’s paintings at home instilled an unshakeable desire in me to become an artist of some sort.
When I was in primary school, I would often tell my parents that when I grew up, I wanted to be “an artist drawing portraits at the market while working part-time at the grocery store” …a very simple and beautiful dream!
What inspires your artwork?
I have varied interests so what inspires my artwork is seemingly conflicting. They include children’s picture books, old horror movies, interesting stories from everyday people, the humour from old Hong Kong comedies and ‘ugly’ things that are often overlooked. Even though people consider my work to be colourful and joyful, I always strive to be sincere in my work and gravitate towards unpolished characters that are have imperfections beneath the surface.
How do you celebrate Lunar New Year?
Every year, my family celebrates Lunar New Year by having a big family dinner together.
Growing up, sometimes we would celebrate at home but most years, we would go to the Chinese restaurant with our family friends and order extravagant dishes like lobster noodles, abalone and steamed fish topped with lots of ginger and shallots. It was also funny watching my late father and family friends clamour over who would get to pay the bill, a great honour in Chinese culture! As well as looking forward to receiving Lai See (red envelopes full of money representing good luck and fortune!). I also enjoyed going to Chinatown with my family to catch the Lion Dance display.
What was the inspiration behind this Lunar New Year art activity?
When thinking about what kind of art activity to design, I thought back to my memories from childhood. Seeing red lucky charms hanging in Chinese households is very nostalgic for me, so I thought it would be fun to teach kids to make their own. I also wanted to encourage kids to use their imagination while introducing them to Chinese characters. Chinese writing is very structured and the stroke order is important, but when I was a child in Chinese school, my teachers would encourage us to draw ‘pictures’ over the characters to help students remember the general shape or strokes. I thought this juxtaposition would be fun to loosely explore as each participant would produce a different interpretation for their tiger design. Most of all, I just want students to have fun while making their lucky charm and realise they can draw anything out of a few marks on a piece of paper.
If you would like to see updates and snippets of Freda’s art process, find her at:
Instagram: @_fredachiu_
Facebook: facebook.com/fredachiuart
Website: fredachiu.com
Lunar New Year 2022 runs from 1 to 15 February 2022 around the world. This is the Year of the Tiger. SBS Learn’s Lunar New Year Art Activity is available now.
Celebrate Lunar New Year with SBS. #LNY2022 #LunarNewYear2022 #LNYSBS