Le Videographe: This non-profit organization has produced numerous award winning documentaries and artists' videotapes. This important centre pioneered the concept of 'community video' on Quebec. It became a model for many similar experiments internationally. Le Videographe continues to play a vital role in helping to define Quebec culture in the production and distribution of independent work.
Jon Bewley is an organizer, producer and co-founder of Locus + with Simon Herbert. Locus+ is an artist-run centre formed in 1992 based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the north of England. Our organization, On Edge, has worked closely with them since 1987, producing numerous events, site-specific projects and exhibition in the U.K. and Canada.
Jon has an established reputation as one of Britain's leading curators. He was a founding member of the Basement Group in 1973 that later developed into Projects UK (another artist-run initiative based in Newcastle) and he was an organizer of the pioneering EDGE (Britain's International Experiment in Art 1988-1992. For the past 20 years, he has produced, coordinated and exhibited hundreds of projects from artists all over the world.
Locus + is a dynamic and active artist-run centre that has a proven track record of producing cutting edge shows. They have created many projects in non-art spaces and have developed novel approaches to art-making and exhibition. They have consistently expressed interest in new artists and new mediums for export and import, particularly from Western Canada.
Past co-productions have included: Feng Shui (1993) - Lani Maestro, Henry Tsang, Paul Wong and Sharyn Yuen in a site-specific context in Newcastle; Temple of My Familiar (1994) - Nhan Duc Nguyen's monumental mural placed within the muralist tradition of West Belfast, with accompanying videotape document; Belfast artist Philip Napier (1995) in Vancouver to produce Sovereign, his first videotape and site-specific project; Exchange Resources in Belfast (1995) - site-specific video installation; and Jazz Slave Ships, Witness, I Burn (1996) by Jan Wade and Vanessa Richards in Whitehaven and Hull - a site-specific installation and performance with accompanying videotape.
Locus + most recently co-produced Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun in the U.K. in September, 1997 with accompanying exhibition in Vancouver, January 1998.
Taki Bluesinger: In 1969, he refused an assignment from Time to go to Vietnam, and instead came to Vancouver. He soon became involved with groups such as Intermedia and the New Era Social Club. He has been invloved in numerous collaborative photography projects including 13 Cameras and The Origins of Man-Made Paradise. He is currently working on Origins/Original's and Nature-Made Paradise in the South Pacific.
Melanie Boyle: She is of Chinese, English and Irish descent. Educated at the University of Victoria and Emily Carr College of Art and Design. Boyle graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with a BFA in 1988. She has travelled extensively throughout the Pacific Rim. She currently lives and works in Montreal as a painter.
Anthony Chan: He has a doctorate in Chinese History from York University and is an Associate Professor (Mass Communication) at California State University, Hayward. He has produced more than 30 television documentaries and was a journalist for CBC and TVB (Hong Kong) before moving to the US. He has written extensively on Chinese history, notably in Gold Mountain: The Chinese in the New World (1983) and Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China (1982). He is currently writing Quick and Dirty: The Politics of Television News in Chinese Asia and is producing a four-part series on Asian American vets of the Vietnam War.
Benjamin Chou: His art education began in Taipei when, as a child, he would draw portraits of relatives and friends. Aftre coming to Canada in 1976, Chou continued his education obtaining a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Photography) from Ryerson Polytechnical, Toronto and an MFA (Photography) from Concordia University, Montreal in 1988. His work has been shown at Optica, The Bourget Gallery and Art 45 in Montreal, and the Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario. He is an active member of Amnesty International.
Richard Fung: Fung is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art, Photoelectric Arts Department (1977) and of the Cinema Studies program at the University of Toronto (1984). His videotapes Orientations, Chinese Characters, The Way To My Father's Village, and most recent work My Mother's Place, have been screened across Canada, the US, and in Europe. His work focuses on the intersection of sex, race and gender and has involved a critique of conventional media practices. He is active as a writer, lecturer and community organizer. He works at DEC Film/Video Distribution, Toronto, is involved with The Euclid - an independent theatre for film/video, and Northern Visions which produces the Images Film/Video Festival.
Monika Gagnon: Of Japanese and French Canadian descent she is bilingual in French and English. Gagnon has a BA in Communications Studies from Concordia University in Montreal and an MA in Social and Political Thought from York University in Toronto. She has written essays and reviews on photographic theory, feminism, and visual art for PhotoCommunique, Thrid Text, Journal of Women's Studies, C Magazine and Parachute. Editorial experience includes working as Co-Editor of Public (1987), Collective Member of Public Access (1984-87), and Editorial Collective Member of borderlines (1984-87). She is the current editor of Paralllelogramme, published by the Assn. of National Non-Profit Artisits' Centres.
Matias Grieck: Artist. Also uses the name MAL. INC. LTD. to de-personify his art-making. Has had 2 recent exhibitions in Canada, both in Vancouver, at the Western Front and Pitt Gallery, February and March 1992 respectively. Grieck has been in numerous group exhibitions and performances in Berlin, and Buenos Aires, while a student at the Hochschule der Kunste Berlin. He is currently studying under Viennese performance artist Valie Export in a select tutorial of 4 students and will graduate in the fall of 1993. He is a young artist with promise whose work often deals with tough issues in a non-literal way. His installation at the Pitt Gallery was of sacks of milk powder, contaminated by the nuclear fallout of Chernobyl, that had been shipped to Third World countries as part of First World foreign aid. Grieck is a permanent resident in Berlin. His work was chosen for this exhibition as it epitomises the contemporary alienation felt by many auslanders and the fear/oppression lurking in the totalitarian state.
Akiko Hada: Artist. Since moving to Berlin in 1990, she has been producing her own work and co-curated with Gavin Hodge a video art package for Berlin's experimental cable channel FAB. During the 80's she was a film and video coordinator at B2 Gallery, London and worked with London Video Arts. She was involved in the local video community in London in the early 80's but later moved in a more commercial direction, producing her first of three commissions for Britain's Channel 4 in 1987. She has co-produced video with Genesis P. Orridge, Psychic TV, Holger Hiller, and the Japanese American Toy Theatre of London. She is known for the highest technical and production qualities. Her work has been shown extensively in galleries, festivals and broadcast in throughout Europe (East and West), North America and Japan. Her video JAMES BONK won Best Video Fiction at Montreal's 1990 Festival du Jeune Cinema.
Simon Herbert: He was Co-Director of Projects UK (Newcastle-upon-Tyne), one of Britain's leading contemporary artist-run centres in the 1970's and 80's. He is now Co-Director with Jon Bewley of LOCUS + (Newcastle), a new artist-run centre that commissions numerous performance and installation works on a national and international scale in Newcastle and abroad. He was guest Curator at Plug In Inc., Winnipeg (1993). He is also a performance artist and writer, with publications in High Performance (Los Angeles) and Performance (London) magazines. Most recently, he published a seminal essay on the history of performance art, "Bread and Circuses" in Art & Design Magazine (London) 1994. He is currently co-directed with Jon Bewley of Locus + - an artist-run centre founded in 1992 in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Jay Hirabayashi is a Vancouver-based choreographer and performer. He is the Executive Director of Kokoro Dance, an experimental dance company that has toured throughout Canada and Europe. Over the past ten years, he has performed with many of Vancouver's best known dance and theatre companies, including the Paula Ross Dance Company, Karen Jamieson Dance Company, Touchstone Theatre and EDAM. A strong interest in interdisciplinary performance has led to collaborations with Boston-based sculptor Bart Uchida, Roy Kiyooka, Sanke in the Grass Moving Theatre and Tokyo jazz poet Kazuko Shiraishi.
Gavin Hodge: Artist. One of the founders of Gorilla Tapes and a pioneer video artist to work with Britain's Channel 4 in the 80's. Hodge relocated to Berlin in 1989 and works as a freelance writer, director and online editor. Current projects include: Director for Dr Mag - short pieces for a youth magazine show for ZDF TV; Director of Potsdamer Platz - two documentaries for Sony Berlin; and Art Director on several Virtual Reality & Promo films for ART + COM e..V. The work chosen here, ZYGOSIS, was produced by the British Film Institute and Channel 4, and was originally screened on Channel 4 in 1991. He is now a permanent resident in Berlin. His film was chosen here as it provides an historical context for the political use of imagery, and yet reflects a kind of critical stance lacking in ethnically produced German works on the subject. ZYGOSIS was transmitted twice this year in Germany.
Roy Kiyooka is a Vancouver photographer, poet, painter, sculptor, filmmaker and teacher who made a major contribution to the artistic community. He bgan exhibiting in the early 1950's. His works have been shown extensively in Canada and abroad, including at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery in Ottawa, and the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art.
Kaori Koyasu: Koyasu moved to Berlin in 1989 after establishing herself as an artist of some renown in Tokyo following her studies at Tama Art University, Tokyo. As a young woman in Tokyo, she experienced the predictable social pressures to conform to that society's dictates, and refused. Once in Berlin, and the rest of Western Europe through her travels, she realized that she could never go back. Thus began an independent art career and her explorations into her role as an artist, a woman, and an auslander, after being based in Berlin. Of all the artists chosen for this exhibition, Koyasu is most conscious of her outsider status, hence her interest in the displaced Tibetan women. She is the least exhibited of all the artists in this show, and in some ways the most interesting because of her angst, her vitality and her fresh approach to artmaking. Her chosen medium is 8mm film, although she has access to more sophisticated technologies. There is a raw quality to her work that should be encouraged, and AUSLANDER VIDEO will do that.
Nobuo Kubota is an artist, musician, and performer who has achieved recognition in the field of sculpture and improvisational performance. He has a degree in Architecture from the University of Toronto, and has taught at a number of institutions, including the New School of Art and the Art College of Ontario. A founding member of the renowned CCMC, he has toured internationally with this dynamic orchestra. His solo performances integrate voice, facial and body mime drama with electronics and instrumental sound sources.
Larissa Lai immigrated to Canada (St. John's Nfld.) in 1972. She has just completed a BA (Honours) in Sociology from the University of BC, with a concentration in the sociology of race and gender. Lai is an active member of the Asian Canadian Writers' Group and has done public readings for International Women's Day at La Quena, Vancouver, Internationl Book Week at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Gardens, Vancouver and The HEard But Not Seen Show on Co-Op Radio.
Laiwan immigrated to Canada in 1977 during the war betwwen the liberation movement and Ian Smith's white settler regime. Currently resident in ZImbabwe, she attended ECCAD, and graduated with honours in interdisciplinary Studies in 1983. Recent articles include "Women and Contemporary Culture in Zimbabwe", and "Decolonizing the Image", an interview with Zimbabwean filmmaker Miriam Patsanza. She facilitated a seminar on Women and Technology in Southern Africa (March 1990) sponsored by the UN in Harare with delegates from the SADCC (Southern Africa Development Conference Committee) region.Laiwan immigrated to Canada in 1977 during the war betwwen the liberation movement and Ian Smith's white settler regime. Currently resident in ZImbabwe, she attended ECCAD, and graduated with honours in interdisciplinary Studies in 1983. Recent articles include "Women and Contemporary Culture in Zimbabwe", and "Decolonizing the Image", an interview with Zimbabwean filmmaker Miriam Patsanza. She facilitated a seminar on Women and Technology in Southern Africa (March 1990) sponsored by the UN in Harare with delegates from the SADCC (Southern Africa Development Conference Committee) region.
Daisy Lee has a "down-to-earth" approach to filmmaking. She was a farmer before she became a filmmaker. The Morning Zoo is her first film and has been distributed internationally as far afield as Nicaragua and China (Shanghai International Television Festival) and as close as the CBC and The Montreal International Festival of Chinese Cinema. Lee is currently creating a hlf hour drama called Captain Courier. She is also developing a docudrama on the untold history of Chinese Canadian women called But Women Did Come.
Helen Lee: The number of hours spent behind a grocery store counter far outstrips the time Helen Lee has been involved in film and media. She has been involved with DEC film and Video in Toronto, and as a contributing music editor for NOW Magazine. She has published articles in Cinema Canada, Fireweed, Broadside, Nerve!, The Independent and Asian Cinevue. She currently attends New York University as a graduate student in the Cinema studies Dept. Sally's Beauty Spot was screened at the IFVA (independent Film and Video Alliance) Showcase at The Euclid Theatre.
Brenda Joy Lem is a third generation Chinese Canadian multi-media artist. She is a writer of poetry and prose, and a visual artist (print-making, collage, drawing and film). Lem graduated from the University of Toronto with a BA in Lanscape Architecture and furthered her education at the Ontario College of Art. She is active in the arts community addressing racial discrimination. Her work has been shown at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival; the Asian American International Film Festival, NYC; the Montreal International Chinese Film Festival; and Images 90, Toronto.
Mary-Ann Liu: Vancouver artist Mary-Ann Liu works in sculpture and video. Her three-dimensional works include life and large bronzes, mythic creatures, and interpretive narrative figures. Her work has been exhibited throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.
Jay Samwald is a film and video scriptwriter based in Vancouver. He has worked in documentary film and experimental video dealing primarily with Asian subject matter. Recent projects include a high school economics curriculum and a play for teens called Glass House - A History of the Future.
Jean Lum: She is currently finishing a BA in English at Simon Fraser University. Her interest is focused on contemporary writing by women of Colour, and issues involving the return of the Head Tax. Lum has been involved in a variety of community projects in Vancouver, including the Saltwater City exhibition, Urbanarium, the Powell Street Festival, and The Japanese Canadian Citizens Association Aural History Project. She is a member of the Asian Canadian Writers' Group and has published in Kinesis.
Chi Chung Mak: He travelled to Canada as a foreign student at the age of 18. In 1988, he obtained his Bachelor's degree from Simon Fraser University in BC. He continued his studies in photography at ECCAD in Vancouver. Mak returned to Hong Kong in 1989 and is currently working as a freelance photographic artist.
Lani Maestro: An MFA graduate from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Maestro has been exhibiting since 1976. Her earlier work in abstract painting with formalist leanings has evolved into installation, photography and video. She has exhibited extensively in Canada and abroad. Her work has been shown at the National Gallery in Ottawa (1989), Eye Level Gallery in Halifax (1989), Articule in Montreal (1990), Power Plant in Toronto (1990), and the Art Gallery of Ontario (Sept. 1993). She is a co-founder of HARBOUR Magazine and Galerie Burning in Montreal. She taught in the graduate program in Visual Arts at Concordia University in 1991-92 and was an artist-in-residence at the Race & Body Politic session at the Banff Centre, summer 1992.
Philip Napier was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1965. After completing a Fine Art degree in Cornwall, England, he returned to Belfast where he received a M.A. from the University of Ulster in 1989. He is a co-founder of Flax Art Studios in Belfast and was recently awarded the Rome Scholarship (1991). His subject matter often have focuses on issues and images related to Belfast and Ireland in general. His works tended to be sculptural and time-based. Recent exhibitions include: Eat the Day - a solo performance/installation at the Orpheus Gallery, Belfast (1991); Shocks to the System - Social and Political Issues in recent art from the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection national tour (1991-92); New Irish Realities - exhibition and conference at the Ash Gallery, Edinburgh (1991); Other Borders: Six Irish Projects at the Grey Art Gallery in New York (1993); and in October, 1994 Napier was Ireland's Representative at the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil.
David Neel: He is a professional artist, photographer and writer. His creative media includes wood, sculpture, photography and writing. He works within the "tradition" of Kwagiutl art in addition to contemporary works that deal with current history. His photography appears in magazines and books, as well as in museums and galleries internationally. His work has been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries including the Smithsonian Institution, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Kamloops Art Gallery, The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Vancouver Museum and the Seattle Art Museum. He currently has two publications: Our Chiefs and Elders (1992) and The Great Canoes (1995), is working on a new publication on the Pow Wow. He trained as a photographer in the U.S.A. for several years with some of that country's top professionals. Besides assignment work he has always completed personal projects. Today he photographs contemporary Native Indian culture for publication and exhibition.
As a traditional carver, he trained with Kwagiutl artists Wayne Alfred and Beau Dick, as well as conducted extensive study of museum collections. Neel draws on his Kwagiutl heritage for artistic direction. From his father, Dave Neel Sr., he inherits a rich artistic heritage. Dave Sr., a Fort Rupert (Tsaxis) Kwagiutl, was taught to carve by his mother, Ellen Neel and her uncle Mungo Martin. Both Mungo and Ellen received their instruction from her grandfather, Charlie James. Neel uses the work of his ancestors as the starting point for his own artistic interpretation.
Nhan Duc Nguyen: Born in Qui Nhon, Vietnam in 1967, he came to Canada at age 12. He lived in Vancouver's Chinatown but commuted across town to a high school with a better art programme. Nguyen was a student at Emily Carr College of Art & Design in Vancouver where his studio work concentrated on painting. He has been widely exhibited in group exhibitions since 1990 such as YELLOW PERIL: RECONSIDERED (Canadian national tour 1990-91); Artropolis (Vancouver, 1993); DUAL CULTURES (Kamloops Art Gallery, 1993); DRAWING DOCUMENTATIONS (Artspeak Gallery, Vancouver, 1993); RACY SEXY at the Chinese Cultural Centre, Vancouver, Nov-Dec. 1993; Sun Yat-Sen Gardens, Vancouver, October, 1994; Art Matters (Surrey Art Gallery, 1994); Racing Through Space (Artspeak, 1994); Cross Currents (Gallery 44, 1995); Orientation (ECIAD Concourse, 1997) and Positive+ at the Roundhouse in Vancouver, October 1997. Select solo exhibitions include Re: With You ... (1995) Artspeak Gallery; Temple of My Familiar (1994) in Belfast; grunt gallery (1992); Front Gallery (1991); Temple of My Familiar - 6 panels at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver (1990). He is working on his first videotape about his mother's home-catering business.
Marlin Oliveros: His work reflects the social and political environment in which he is situated - Manila, Bangkok, Burma and Vancouver. His work has been shown at the Osaka Video Festival; Asian American International Video Festival, NYC; American Film Institute, LA; Infermental 8 (tokyo edition); Yellow Peril: New World Asians, London; Images 89, Toronto; and Asian New World, Vancouver. He is currently living and teaching English in Bangkok, Thailand.
Midi Onodera is a Toronto based filmmaker who has been producing films for nine years. She has 19 films to her credit. As a body, her films deal provocatively with the issues of identity and isolation within the arena of sexuality and ethnicity. Minimal in design, they often combine documentary elements with fiction and dramatic forms. The Displaced View was nominated for the 1989 Gemini award for Best Documentary.
Chick Rice: She was raised in Vancouver and currently makes a living as a magazine editorial photographer. Rice was educated at the University of BC, ECCAD, and Banff Centre for the Arts. She has been exhibiting professionally since 1975. Solo and group exhibition include Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge, Gallery VU in Quebec, Presentation House, Montgomery Cafe, The Convertible Showroom in Vancouver, and Gallery Plennings in Eindhoven. She is currently working on her first video production.
Vanessa Richards: She began her writing and performing career as a musician in Vancouver in the mid-80's, performing with a number of local bands such as "Bolera Lava" where she was lead singer. After moving to England in 1992, she quickly established a niche within the burgeoning young Black performance culture of Brixton in South London. Her work output has been prolific since then, as an organizer, writer, performer and singer/recording artist. She and Wade collaborated on the audio portion of the BRAVO production.
Elspeth Sage: She is a co-founding director of On Edge, curator, writer, producer and arts critic. Her articles have appeared in Video Guide, Impulse, Vanguard, FUSE, V Magazine, Parallelogramme, Media Arts, HARBOUR Magazine, CIRCA, FRONT and Artists' Newsletter. She was the Associate Curator of Yellow Peril: Reconsidered - national tour of film, video and photography by 25 Asian Canadians (1990-91), and curator of Feng Shui - photoworks by 4 Asian Canadians in Newcastle (1993), curator of Auslander Video new film and video from Berlin by auslanders (outsiders) (1993). She produced the post- exhibition publication of Feng Shui (1994) and was co-curator with Daina Augaitis at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff of Jan Wade's exhibition Epiphany (1994), and the curator of the monumental mural project by Nhan Duc Nguyen Temple of My Familiar in Belfast, Northern Ireland (1994).
She was Executive Producer of the post- exhibition video of the Temple project, directed by Paul Wong, and Executive Producer of Sovereign, the first videotape by Belfast artist Philip Napier. She produced installation and performance work by artists Jon Bewley and Simon Herbert of LOCUS + (Newcastle) in Vancouver in October, 1995 and was the curator of Vancouver to Santiago - 2nd Bienal de Video in Santiago, Chile (Oct 1995).Her text "Anatomy of a Thriller" appeared in Paul Wong's exhibition catalogue On Becoming A Man, published by the National Gallery of Canada in Sept. 1995. She was the author of an essay for CIRCA Magazine (Dublin) entitled "Cultural Axis" on international exchanges and co-productions. She presented a video installation of On Edge productions at Exchange Resources at the Belfast Arts Festival in November, 1995.
She curated a new site- specific installation and performance work by Jan Wade Jazz Slave Ships, Witness, I Burn presented in October, 1996 in Whitehaven, Cumbria and Hull, U.K. dealing with England's involvement in the slave trade. She co-directed with Paul Wong the videotape documenting this project released in January 1998 and she is co-producing with Paul Wong an electronic publication of 14 years of On Edge productions. She is currently producing the Vancouver premiere of Nguyen's Temple of My Familiar for the 2000 Dragon Boat Festival. She is co-author with Elizabeth Vander Zaag of the cougardate.com - an award- winning site dealing with post-feminist practises.
Ruby Truly immigrated to Canada in 1969 as a statement of protest against the US involvement in the Vietnam War. She has worked as a professional actress, musician and producer, and began to explore video in the 1980's. She relocated to Vancouver in 1987. Her work has been screened at Invisible Colours, Vancouver; New Langton Arts, San Francisco; Show The Right Thing, a national conference on Multi-Cultural Film and Video, NYC; In Living Color: Representations of Race and Civil Rights, LA; the National Gallery, Ottawa; the American Film Institute, LA; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Video In, Vancouver; and Images 89, Toronto.
Henry Tsang immigrated to Canada in 1968. He graduated with a BFA from the University of BC in 1986 and continued studies at the Banff Centre. He has been producing work that deals with photography and text, often with the use of Chinese characters. Chinese Pictures was a solo exhibition at the Banff Centre in 1987 and at Artspeak, Vancouver in 1988. He has also been involved in numerous group exhibitions including the Vancouver Exchange, Cold City Gallery, Toronto; Fear of Others: Art Against Racism, CPR Roundhouse, Vancouver; and In Transition: Chinese Canadian Artists in Vancouver, Chinese Cultural Centre.
Jan Wade is based in Vancouver. She has been painting and producing artwork for over 20 years. She has exhibited in many local galleries and group exhibitions, including Culturally (dis) Placed - Burnaby Art Gallery 1992, ARTROPOLIS 1993, the Pitt Gallery 1993 (Vancouver), and solo shows: Soul Tone Poem at the grunt gallery 1993 (Vancouver), Cafe des Arts 1993 (London, England), Epiphany at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, 1994. She was one of two artists chosen to represent Canada at the first South African Bienale Africus in 1995. She received a Canada Council B Grant in 1993 to assist with her trips to Cuba. A short film featuring Wade's work was produced for the BRAVO Channel, screened in the fall of 1996.
Tamio Wakayama is the unofficial photo-chronicler for Vancouver's Little Tokyo. He is an active community organizer and one of the founders of the Powell Street Festival. His photoworks have been exhibited in numerous international group an one-man shows including the Canadian Centre of Photography, Toronto; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; the Chisenhale Gallery, London; and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He is currently working on a photographic exhibition and book on 14 Powell Street Festivals, 1977-1991, Powell Street Festival: A Celebration of Nikkei Renewal.
Paul Wong Paul Wong creates work in video, performance, photography and installation. He is a media arts pioneer and veteran, the first and youngest artist to break many barriers in the Canadian art scene when he picked up his first Portapak camera.Many of his projects were developed for site-specific contexts, unique public venues, community centres, artist-run spaces, festivals, museums, closed circuit broadcast and television. In 1992, he was the recipient of the Bell Canada Award for Video Art in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of the art form.
He is a self-taught artist who has been an activist against censorship, for artistic freedom, against racism since the early 1970's when he worked with street kids through Satellite Art Programs 1972-78. He has helped to create mentorship and internships for younger artists through workshops. He has demonstrated national leadership in the Canadian Artist Run Movement (ANNPAC Vice-President) and hundreds of curated programs. He was editor of Video Guide and has contributed to many other media arts magazines.
In addition, he is an active cultural strategist in Vancouver and nationally. He co-founded the Video In Studios (1973), Canada's leading electronic arts access, production, distribution and exhibition centre. He is also the Artistic Director of On Edge (1985), a non-profit organization that initiates challenging art projects. Both organizations import and export international programs, host visiting artists, curate exhibitions and publish books on new popular culture.
Recent works such as Blending Milk and Water: Sex in the New World (1996) premiered at the 11th Annual International AIDS Conference in Vancouver, July 1996 and had its U.S. premiere on Oct. 1996 at the "New Documentaries" series at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was video director and co-producer of Jazz Slave Ships, Witness, I Burn - a site-specific installation and performance by Vancouver artist Jan Wade in Whitehaven, U.K. in October, 1996. He is currently in post-production on Cultural Baggage - a multi-channel work featuring High-8 video footage from around the world.
Other video productions include So Are You - an exploration into cultural and sexual stereotyping by the dominant culture, and Mixed Messages - interviews with an Asian transsexual about gender reassignment. These works were both featured in On Becoming A Man - an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (Sept.21,1995-Jan.7,1996). This solo exhibition of eleven selected video works by Wong made between 1976-1995. The four multi-media installations remounted in their original forms were: in ten sity, Confused: Sexual Views, Chinaman's Peak: Walking The Mountain and Mixed Messages. The seven single-channel videotapes were 60 Unit Bruise, 4, Prime Cuts, Confused, Body Fluid, Ordinary Shadows, Chinese Shade and So Are You. The exhibition catalogue in English and French, with a Chinese summary, includes illuminating essays by National Gallery curator Jean Gagnon, and Vancouver writers Elspeth Sage and Monika Gagnon.
Wong was the curator of Yellow Peril: Reconsidered - an exhibition of film, video and photography by 25 Asian Canadian artists that toured to 6 Canadian cities (1990-91). Other projects include curator of Kikyo: Coming Home to Powell Street (1992); a solo exhibition of Chinaman's Peak: Walking The Mountain (1993) at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; feng shui adviser and an artist in the Feng Shui (1993) exhibition in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; director of the videotape document of the installation of Temple of My Familiar (1995) in Belfast.
His installation Windows 97 premiere at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, England in May, 1997 in the international exhibition Fortune Cookies featuring contemporary work by Chinese diasporic artists from around the world. Other recent projects: THE FIRST EMPEROR'S LAST DAYS Victoria Theatre,Singapore June 13-14, August 10 -22 was a directing collaboration with THEATREWORKS.Written by Tarn How and directed by Ong Ken Sen, this work is a political allegory billed as a psychological thriller. It was an ambitious experimental work for the stage that was a fusion of artistic ideas and forms: conventional drama, abstraction, surveillance video, electronic and installation art.This new multi-media and theatre event was created for the 1998 Singapore Arts Festival. DEAD MAN TALKING March 22, South London Gallery, U.K.was a multi-media event as part of Parallel Universe, a series on art and non-Western medicine and science. The installation, performance and lectures series was a project by Arts Catalyst, the science & art agency. WINDOWS 97 May 16 - June 8, Nunnery Gallery, London. U.K.The installation of neon and photo canvases was the inaugural exhibition of the Nunnery Gallery in East London. This exhibition was the third stop of the year long U.K. tour. Windows 97 was created for Fortune Cookies, the Chinese Diaspora series at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art in London) in May 1997. The site-specific work was created for the Nash Room windows that face the royal ceremonial route on Pall Mall. Windows is a monumental work that acknowledges the de/recolonization of Hong Kong. Commissioned by the ICA Live Arts and Locus +. THEM=US 1998 - 2000 Canadian Tour is a an exhibition featuring the work of twenty photographers.Wong was commissioned to photograph Chinese Cafes in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan during a month long drive through the wild west. A book and cd-rom will be published in Fall 1999. The exhibition has already toured to over four dozen venues: museums, malls, office complexes, and community centres through 2000. Produced by The Harmony Movement (Toronto) THE FIVE ENERGIES - CHINESE CAFES Open Studio, Toronto May 5 - 31, is a limited edition series of prints produced during a residency in Sept. 1997. The series is based on historical, family and recent photographs of Chinese Cafe culture in Western Canada. The Taoist system of the Five Energies Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water and its corresponding colors influenced the anesthetics of the series. Series of five 22" x 44" photo silkscreen prints.
SITTING OUT DESERT STORM IN PARIS was a photo essay created for the May/June issue of Front Magazine (Vancouver). 7 pages of photomontages and story were written for the'after the revolution" issue. It is travelogue set in Paris. WAH-Q: OVERSEAS CHINESE Journey To The East Performances Jan 21-23, Shousen Theatre, Hong Kong Journey To The East Installation March, Hong University of Science & Technology Jiangnan, April 8, Grunt Gallery, Vancouver WAH-Q, is a work about sexual identity and was created for Journey To The East using the Peking Opera tradition of two actors, two chairs and a table. WAH-Q is a video performance using live action, live and prerecorded video sources. An installation version was created for gallery exhibition. VIDEOTAPES IN CIRCULATION: MISS CHINATOWN: National Gallery purchase, Worldwide Video Fest, Amsterdam CHINAMANS PEAK: WALKING THE MOUNTAIN is touring with Track Records & Scanning Histories
BLENDING MILK + WATER: SEX IN THE NEW WORLD was broadcast on Knowledge as part of Video In 25th Anniversary Series in October in ten sity + 60 Unit + Prime Cuts sold to Concordia University
Jim Wong-Chu: He was brought to Vancouver as a "paper son", where he was raised by aunts and uncles. He became part of the Chinese Canadian cafe landscape, working in restaurants and greasy spoons throughout Chinese North America, eventually putting down roots in Vancouver's Chinatown. Wong-Chu spent four years at the Vancouver Art School and has since worked as a comunity organizer, historian, and radio broadcaster. He is a founding member of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop, as well as being a full-time letter carrier for Canada Post. His book of poetry Chinatown Ghosts was published to critical acclaim in 1986. He is currently editing an anthology of Chinese Canadian writers.
Jin-Me Yoon immigrated to Vancouver in 1968. She grew up in the predominatly white, lower middleclass suburbs of North Delta, BC. Between travels abroad, she obtained a BA in Psychology (1985) from the University of BC and a BFA (1990) from ECCAD. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Photography at Concordia University in Montreal.
Sharyn Yuen: Vancouver artist and teacher, Yuen has exhibited in British Columbia, Europe and Australia. She is a graduate of the Fine Arts program at the University of Victoria with further studies in Banff, Montreal and Japan. Yuen lectures and teaches throughout B.C., including at Emily Carr College of Art and Design, and Metchosin Inter. Summer School for the Arts. She is the proprietor of Kakali Papers, a studio that specializes in handmade papers.. Her work has been exhibited at the Burnaby Art Gallery's exhibition Culturally (dis) Placed , Self Not Whole and in a solo show Like a Plague of Locusts at the Pitt Gallery, Vancouver, in January, 1993.