5 Questions with Steffie Yee 余淑婷
Steffie Yee 余淑婷 is an animation director and illustrator, whose work weaves together digital and mixed-media processes involving stop-motion, 2D & 3D animation. With a background in music, her animation style is driven by the synergy between sound and image. In addition to creating animation for music, film, TV, and commercials, Steffie’s work has appeared in the forms of illustration, public art installation, and live visual installation for events.
Born and raised in the Hunter Valley in NSW (Wonnarua Country), Steffie draws creative inspiration from her unique upbringing in regional Australia and her Malaysian-Chinese heritage.
Steffie’s work has screened internationally at the Atlanta Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, and Palm Springs ShortFest, where her strata cut animated film The Lost Sound (2018) received two nominations for Best Animated Short and Best Animated Student Short. In 2023, her work screened at the TEDxSydney Youth conference which celebrates the ideas and work of young creators. In the online space, Steffie’s work has earned features on Vimeo Staff Picks, Motionographer, and BOOOOOOOM TV.
(Credit: Dorcas Tang)
No.1
Chinese Restaurant Playground is an exhibition about your experiences growing up around your family’s restaurant business in Branxton NSW. What was it like growing up in the town? What are your most striking memories of that time?
Growing up in a country town like Branxton gave me a perspective and appreciation for things that I don’t think I would have if I grew up in a big city. Experiences like having a pizza delivered to our door was not possible in the 90s and early 2000s, because the closest pizza shop was 20km away. That’s almost the same distance between Footscray and St Kilda, or Newtown and Homebush. Ironically, before my parents moved to Branxton to open their Chinese restaurant, the previous business that existed in the building was a pizza shop owned by a Pakistani family.
Although pizza was no longer available after my parents moved into the shop, Branxton has been lucky enough to have two operating Chinese restaurants in my lifetime. The other Chinese restaurant, referred to as ‘28’s’ because of the number on their sign, was owned by the Yam family who are our good friends. I grew up with their daughter who is a similar age to me, and it was always comforting to have a friend who understood exactly what it was like to have parents who own a Chinese restaurant in a small country town (in this case, in the same town, at the same time!).
When I think about my memories from growing up in Branxton, there is a full spectrum of emotions. I have so many great stories about how my parents have served four generations of the same families, and how some loyal customers and restaurant staff have become their genuine friends. Mum often tells the story of [the day of my sister’s birth]. Dad was busy working at the restaurant, so one of their customers offered to drive my mum to the hospital when she went into labour. Mum woke up in hospital to several bunches of flowers gifted from various customers.
The community in Branxton is so small that you can walk into any store on the main street and most people will know you by name, or who you are related to. That’s not something you can really experience in a big city. While most of the community are truly supportive, I also have sad stories of people hurling racist comments over the phone or in person at the restaurant, or throwing objects at the exterior of the restaurant. On the other side of that same coin, there are people who are more subtle in their actions, who for many years have quietly but intentionally excluded me, my siblings or my parents from social situations because they don’t like how we look, or don’t know how to interact with us, and have never critically looked within themselves to see that it’s their own problem.
In a place that is quite monocultural, unfortunately that can sometimes present a breeding ground for ignorance. Despite this, my parents have created so much for our family and we continue to live our lives. Play, imagination, joy and creativity allows us to keep ourselves entertained in the light of the many anxiety-inducing aspects that might come with running a Chinese restaurant in regional Australia. That’s what I try to highlight in Chinese Restaurant Playground.
No.2
In the press release you say that “the classic Aussie-Chinese restaurant is likely going to disappear in the next decade or two”. Can you speak more on why you think that is?
Most, if not all, of my parents’ Malaysian-Chinese friends, including my Aunty and Uncle, owned Chinese restaurants around the Greater Newcastle region in NSW when I was growing up. The large majority of them have retired and sold their businesses, their dreams of their children pursuing less laborious careers having successfully played out.
As much as these regional Chinese restaurants are often loved and revered by the community, the less romantic part of the narrative is that running these restaurants is extremely hard work. My parents still have their restaurant today and frequently work overtime, with work days very often racking up to 12 hours a day. For immigrants with narrow job prospects, these old Chinese restaurants were a means to survive in a foreign country, and a stepping stone to provide the next generation with options for better opportunities. Unfortunately this means many of the younger generations are not inheriting these restaurants.
In Branxton, there have been dramatic changes to the landscape in the last decade due to urban sprawl. Sadly, in 2023, this caused our friends at 28’s—the other Chinese restaurant—to involuntarily close their doors due to city developers seeing the area as prime real estate. The Yam family operated 28’s for 30 years. It was a staple and one of the longest running businesses in Branxton.
No.3
You have a background in music. How do you weave animation and illustration such that the different forms speak to each other?
I grew up studying music and when I first learned how to animate at university, I noticed how music and animation have a lot in common. Both mediums use timing to tell a story, unlike a static image for example. They share similar principles like transitioning between two points in a story, creating tension by adding lots of elements into a short sequence, or pausing to emphasise a particular moment. When I work on an animation, I will usually think about how I would like it to sound first, and that will dictate the pacing and energy I’m aiming to achieve. Even when I sometimes work on an animation that doesn’t have a soundtrack, I will imagine what it might sound like if it were to have one, and that helps me a lot with figuring out the pacing of the animation.
No.4
What can we expect to see in the exhibition?
Chinese Restaurant Playground features archival footage and photographs, animation, sculpture, and illustrations.
The works on display are just the tip of the iceberg of a collection of materials I’ve gathered over the last few years as a personal research project. Whenever I’ve mentioned it to people, I’ve noticed people are always enthusiastic to share their own stories of their local Chinese restaurant, or one they came across on their rural road trip, or how their parents owned a food truck, bakery, Italian restaurant, clothing factory, or fruit shop. The list goes on.
I love hearing other people’s stories, so I also have a photo book at the exhibition—I’m encouraging people to write in it and share their own stories. One visitor mentioned in the photo book that they relate to a photo of my sister sleeping on top of a chest freezer, because they used to also sleep at their parents’ computer shop when they were growing up.
No.5
What do you hope viewers will take away from Chinese Restaurant Playground?
I hope that viewers walk away with a broader perspective of regional towns in Australia. Asian people have existed for so long in these small towns all around the country, but their stories are often overshadowed by Anglo-Celtic or European stories.
On the contrary, most of the existing Asian-Australian stories we hear are focused on Asian diaspora in major cities, often overshadowing stories about those from or living in regional towns.
My hope is that Chinese Restaurant Playground addresses these gaps in the current dominant narratives.
Find out more
Chinese Restaurant Playground by Steffie Yee 余淑婷, is an exhibition about childhood, imaginative play, and finding joy within the frenetic settings of her parents’ Chinese restaurant.
The exhibition presents a multimedia collection of finished works, and works in progress, exploring the artist’s experience growing up in the regional NSW town of Branxton. Through multilingual animations, videos, illustrations and photographs, Steffie seeks to humanise the people behind the ‘local Chinese restaurant’, whose stories risk being lost due to language barriers and a long record of cultural history that predominantly spotlights Anglo-Celtic and European migration – particularly in regional Australian narratives.
The exhibition runs from 12 June to 15 September at Footscray Community Arts Centre. More details here.