The Lantern City celebrates the Lunar New Year with arts and storytelling across Vancouver, lighting up the city where diversity shines. The Lantern City features 36 lanterns at five locations, including Granville Island, šx????n?q Xwtl’e7énk Square, 800 Robson Plaza, Bentall Centre, and the Pendulum Gallery. Artists from a wide range of creative and cultural backgrounds work with the festival to produce large-scale illuminated lanterns featuring their artwork. As part of the festivities, Pendulum Gallery is hosting a solo exhibition featuring Taiwanese illustrator and comic artist Zhou Jian-xin.

This exhibition presents artwork from three of Zhou Jian-xin's graphic stories, two of which are collaborations with writer Yang Fu-min. Through various artistic styles, Zhou tells stories about family, growing up, and the cycle of life. His work is centered on personal remembrances of his hometown of Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan. Highlighting the wisdom of Tainan's matriarchs and elders, On the Road presents stories that transcend language and reach the hearts of adults and children alike.

Zhou Jian-xin is an acclaimed Taiwanese illustrator and graphic novelist. He began his career as an elementary school teacher before shifting to children’s literature, debuting with Missing Cat Posters (????), which won the Hsin-yi Children’s Literature Award. His works, including Puppy and I (??) and The Little Squirrel and the Banyan Tree (???????), explore themes of innocence, loss, and life’s cycles through emotive, distinctive illustrations.

In 2019, Zhou co-created The Boy from Clearwater (???????), a graphic novel chronicling Tsai Kun-lin, founder of the children’s magazine Prince, across Taiwan’s modern history. The English edition (2024) was widely praised, and the work has since been published in seven languages, earning the Golden Tripod Award, Golden Comic Award, White Ravens Award, and Freeman Book Awards.

His most recent publication: Great Grandma’s Daily Calendar, another collaboration with Yan Fu-min, was released in 2025. The lantern designs in the exhibition are based on Zhou’s drawings for the book.