Rewind, Play, Fast-Forward
A public artist talk by Paul Wong as part of the Artist in Residence Program
5:30 p.m., Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Room 104, Frederic Lasserre Building
6333 Memorial Road, University of British Columbia
ahva.ubc.ca
The event is free and open to the public. Paul Wong’s talk will be introduced by Michael Dang, a PhD student in Art History, an alumnus of both the Critical and Curatorial Studies graduate program and the BA Art History, and recent curator of Unit Bruises: Theodor Wan and Paul Wong at Richmond Art Gallery.
The 2024-2025 Artist in Residence, Paul Wong, will present his multiverse: an interdisciplinary art practice that spans fifty years. Celebrated as one of Canada’s pioneering video artists, Wong has been creating single- and multi-channel works for screens of all shapes, sizes, and lengths for festivals, artist-run galleries, museums, community centres, broadcast networks, and online platforms.
In this power hour, illustrated media presentation, Wong will rewind, play, and fast-forward through an eclectic range of past, present, and current projects-in-progress that will flow from early low-tech analogue experiments to new media explorations, works on paper, photography, performance art, neon sculptures, and site-specific public art commissions. He will connect seemingly disparate projects by grounding them in form, content, and context as well as his radical body and identity politics.
Parallel to his art practice is his just as prolific groundbreaking curatorial exhibitions, the producing, facilitating and mentoring of other local, national and international artists. He has been at the forefront of artist run culture in Canada as a founding director of Vivo Media Art Center (Satellite Video Exchange Society, 1973), a member of the Mainstreeters (1972), and the founding artistic director of On Main (On the Cutting Edge Productions Society, 1986). Central to his D.I.Y. philosophy is that artists have creative freedom of expression by ensuring that they have control over their own means of production, exhibition and distribution.
This artist in residency is an exciting and unique opportunity to engage with the AHVA and broader academic community that offers the potential for cross disciplinary collaborations and research. Dr. Wong is a self-taught artist who considers himself mentored by “community”. In 2023, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from ECUAD, Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
The Artist in Residence Program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory is made possible by the generous support of an anonymous donor. Past AHVA Artists in Residence have been Beau Dick, Stan Douglas, Germaine Koh, Marianne Nicolson, and Diamond Point.
We acknowledge that the UBC Vancouver campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam).
Image: Paul Wong, PechaKucha Night Vol. 57
