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Wellness & Goji
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Plants travel with people. Goji shrubs have grown in Edmonton since Chinese migrants arrived in the 1890s. Today they can be found in the river valley and in family gardens.
Here, wellness is not a promise of cure. It is a story about migration, family knowledge, adaptation, trade, hospitality, and everyday care.
A Plant on the Move
Artist-researcher Yong Fei Guan’s Living History of Gojis in Edmonton and Edmonton Goji Map bring together plant life, Chinese Canadian history, family gardens, neighbourhood knowledge, and public art. In Edmonton, goji can be a river-valley shrub, a backyard plant, a gift between neighbours, a memory of an older family member, or a subject of contemporary art—not just a packaged “superfood.”
Plants Take Root Twice
A plant takes root in soil, but also in memory. Migrants carry seeds, tastes, names, and expectations into a new climate that changes what survives and how it is used—neighbours exchange cuttings, and a child may recognize a packaged berry before the shrub itself. The Edmonton goji story is not a simple “preservation” story: the plant adapts, people adapt, and meaning changes, without losing its longer route here.
Care, Not Cure
The table also introduces floral and herbal infusions and Canadian-grown American ginseng, showing that movement runs in both directions between North America and Asia. The exhibition does not rank family knowledge against professional or scientific knowledge—it asks how different kinds of authority meet in an everyday cup, and where a real health question belongs with a healthcare professional instead.
Osmanthus: A Fragrance of the Season
Osmanthus has long been an important seasonal ingredient in Jiangnan, the lower Yangtze region of China. Its small flowers are gathered for their distinctive fragrance and used in tea, sweet osmanthus preserved with sugar, desserts, and seasonal drinks.
“Osmanthus tea” can mean tea leaves scented or blended with osmanthus, or an infusion made mainly from the flowers. Everyday names do not always follow strict botanical categories. At the exhibition table, visitors can see dried osmanthus and an osmanthus tea display, then consider how fragrance carries memories of season and place.
桂子月中落，天香云外飘。
Traditionally attributed to Song Zhiwen, “Lingyin Temple” (Tang dynasty)
Exhibition Table
At the physical table, the goji branch, dried berries, map, floral infusions, and community practice cards connect local plants with memories and routes. Some cups contain true tea from Camellia sinensis; others are more precisely herbal infusions or tisanes—everyday Chinese speech may still call both “tea.”
Look Closer
Follow goji into Edmonton.
Which plant makes you think of home?
Care is a practice and a relationship, not a universal cure claim.