Artist Talk with Paul Wong

Paul Wong and guest curator Michael Dang in conversation about the early works of Wong and his involvement in Vancouver’s artist-run culture in the 1970s. Wong will screen some of his early video works, in addition to the works seen in the Unit Bruises exhibition.

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About the presenters:

Paul Wong (1954 -) is a multimedia artist, activist, writer and curator who was born in Prince Rupert and is based in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Wong’s work often tackles head-on identity politics and interrogates oppressive dominant structures such as systemic racism and homophobia. Other prominent themes in his work include death and memory, as well as media manipulation. Wong has received many awards for his contributions to video art including the Bell Canada Award in Video Art (1992), the inaugural Trailblazer Expressions Award (2003) created by Heritage Canada, the National Film Board and CHUM Limited, the Canada Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art (2005) and the Audain Prize For Lifetime Achievement In Visual Arts (2016). In 2023, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Emily Carr University and recognized as an Outstanding Artist by the Federation of Gay Games. Wong’s recent works include 5, a series of immersive art experiences commissioned for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and more recently a year long residency at Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Gardens in partnership with the City of Vancouver. Curated projects include 10 Seconds (2011) with the City of Vancouver Public Art Project, Thru The Trap Door (2014) and the Pride in Chinatown festival (2018-2022) etc. His work has been included and exhibited in the collections of many public institutions such as the National Gallery Of Canada, The Museum Of Modern Art, the Vancouver Art Gallery etc.

Michael Dang (he/him/his) is a curator, filmmaker, writer and second year MA candidate in the Critical and Curatorial Studies Program at the University Of British Columbia, where he also received his BA degree majoring in Art History. Dang was the recipient of the SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship Master’s Award in September 2022 and the Audain Foundation Graduate Fellowship of that same year. Dang has also received awards for his directorial and screenwriting work including the short Brother Mary (2021) which has been selected for over fifteen international film festivals and was the recipient of the Best Script award at both the Toronto Indie Filmmakers Festival and the Seoul International Short Film Festival. His curatorial practice is research and archival-based, with a special interest in historical curation, and sociopolitical contextualization, broadly focusing on mid-century conceptualism. He is based in Vancouver on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish nations.

Photo credits:
Paul Wong. Headshot photo by PHillip Chin.
Paul Wong, 7 Day Activity (video still), 1977/2008
Paul Wong, In Ten Sity (video still), 1978

Host or Publisher Richmond Art Gallery