Laiwan is an artist\, writer and educator recognized for her interdisciplinary practi ce based in poetics\, improvisation and philosophy.
Born in Zimbabwe of Chinese parents\, she immigrated to Canada in 1977 to leave the war in R hodesia. She initiated the OR Gallery (1983) and the First Vancouver Lesbia n Film Festival (1988). Recipient of the Vancouver Queer Media Artist Awar d (2008) and of numerous arts awards over the years\, Laiwan exhibits in gr oup and solo shows\, curates projects in Canada\, the US\, and Zimbabwe\, p ublishes in a variety of anthologies and journals\, and is an activist in q ueer and feminist community organizing.
Her cross-disciplinary projec
ts investigate epistemology\, technology and viral mobility such as with th
e interactive website "Call Numbers: The Library Recordings”\, and\, projec
ts for "PDA for your PDA: Public Display of Affection for your Personal Dig
ital Assistant" exploring the performativity of texts to build communal mus
icality\, poetics and lyricism. She also premiered her performative rock ba
nd “LaiwanKwanKage” (2011) with collaborators Vanessa Kwan and Eileen Kage
to explore improvisation and somatic intelligence. Her work was featured i
n the Vancouver Art Gallery’s exhibitions How Soon Is Now:
Contemporar
y Art From Here (2009)\, Everything\, Everyday (2010)\, and in c.1983 (2012
) at Presentation House Gallery.
Laiwan teaches in the MFA in Interdi sciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College in Washington State\, USA\, and is current Chair of the Board of Directors at grunt gallery.
Her webs ite is: http://www.laiwanette.net< /p> LOCATION:Laserre Building\, Room 102 GEO:49.267665;-123.255830 URL;VALUE=URI:https://ahva.ubc.ca/events/event/artists-talk-laiwan/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://ahva.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2021/05/1133.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20121104T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR