Somewhere between brilliant playful colours and overt terror lies the now Vancouver-based artist Anwen Liu’s new body of work. She's interested in how those contrasting sides can be used to portray personal narratives. We catch up with Liu to talk about why nightmares can be productive, why it’s important for her to make work that directly involves the viewer/the audience, her natural inclination to build oversize spaces and sculptures, her recent interest in death, and why she’s obsessed with Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared among other talking points.

Luther Konadu: Did people know to grab a piece of your sculpture?

Anwen Liu: I had to stand there the whole time, talk to people and assure them that it was fine to take a bottle of origami stars. I feel like in general people see art as something to not touch even though I had it in my title labelled that they could grab one. However, standing there talking to people made it more interactive and less isolating.