Laiwan

Laiwan (born 1961) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, gallerist, activist, and educator. Her wide-ranging artistic practice is based in poetics and philosophy. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Biography Laiwan was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1961 of Toisan Chinese descent. Her family emigrated to Canada in 1977 to leave the war in apartheid Rhodesia. She graduated with a diploma from Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1983. In 1999, she received a Master of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts.

In 1983, Laiwan founded Or Gallery, while Arni Haraldsson, Petra Watson, Lori Hinton, Michelle Normoyle, and Ken Lum were the founders of the Or Gallery Society, established under the Society Act in 1984. As the founder, her intent was to dispel myths about the impossibility of founding and operating a gallery, particularly for women. She was chair of the grunt gallery board of directors from 2010 to 2014.

From 2001 to 2022, Laiwan taught in the Master of Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Arts program at Goddard College in Washington state. She currently works in the Vancouver Park Board's Decolonization, Arts and Culture Department.

Artistic practice Laiwan's socially, culturally, and environmentally engaged practice includes performance, photography, drawing, installation, audio, video, writing, research, memes, web projects, mapping, and interactive public art projects. She explores concepts of presence by way of bodily, emotional intelligence, and spatial politics located in the environment. She has received commissions from the City of Vancouver's Public Art Program, Vancouver Heritage Foundation, and Burnaby Art Gallery.

Select artworks Travels in China, 1985 is a 1986 work consisting of hundreds of 35 mm colour slides taken during Laiwan's first trip to China at the age of 24. Created in collaboration with Nina Skogster, a Helsinki-based artist, they retraced the path of Laiwan's own migration via an east to west railway route. There are three parts to this artwork. Part One, titled "OBSESSION: POSSESSION" shows the poem Sappho 31 in both the original Greek and as an English translation. Part Two is titled "SPELL," wherein Laiwan translates the Christian prayer Our Father from sign language into words, deconstructing and breaking apart the text, phrase by phrase, word by word, and letter by letter. "Untitled," the Part Three of the project, moves from language into images of landscapes. In 2018, Laiwan started the Mobile Barnacle City Live/Work Studio, an installation created in the SiteFactory bus, which was a part of Emily Carr University's Living Labs Ten Different Things project series. Mobile Barnacle City was installed in various locations around Chinatown in Vancouver. The project also involved T'uy'tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley.

Select exhibitions

Solo exhibitions Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2022 How Water Remembers, Massy Arts, Vancouver, 2021 Maple Tree Spiral: the pedagogy of a tree in the city, Artspeak, Vancouver, 2019 Laiwan: Loose Work, Or Gallery and at On Main, Vancouver, 2008 Duet: Étude For Solitudes, YYZ Artist's Outlet / Images Festival, Toronto, 2006 Quartet for the Year 4698 or 5760: Improvisation for 4 Film Projectors, with Lori Freedman, Open Space Gallery, Victoria, 2002 Small, Medium and Not Large: Books and Collages 1982 to Present, grunt gallery, Vancouver, 1996 and articule, Montreal, 1997 CAVE / CAVEAT, Or Gallery, Vancouver, 1982

Group exhibitions Urban Screen, with PANDEMIA — the movie, Libby Leshgold Gallery, Vancouver, 2021-2022 Thought, outside, curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, Western Front, Vancouver, 2020 Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT, curated by Lorna Brown, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2018 Through A Window: Visual Art and SFU 1965–2015; SFU Galleries, Vancouver and Burnaby, 2015 Da Bao: Take Out, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg and Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, 2013 Da Bao: Take Out, curated by Shannon Anderson / Doug Lewis, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Mississauga Art Gallery, 2012 Everything Everyday, curated by Bruce Grenville, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2010 How Soon Is Now: Contemporary Art from Here, curated by Kathleen Ritter, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2009 Limits of Tolerance: Re-framing Multicultural State Policy, Centre A Gallery, Vancouver, 2007 Group Search: Art in the Library, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, 2007 rapture: rupture, Artspeak, Vancouver, 1999

Curatorial work Laiwan was co-founder and co-curator of the 1988 First Vancouver Lesbian Film Festival at Vancouver East Cinema, presented by the Vancouver Lesbian Network.

Editorial projects With Arni Haraldsson, Laiwan founded and edited Woo (later The Paper) at Emily Carr College of Art and Design from November 1980 to April 1981.

Writing by Laiwan "LUNG: Towards Embodying" in DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Arts, Anvil Press, Vancouver, 2008 "Ed Pien: Drawing Hauntology" feature article in Canadian Art, Summer 2007, Vol. 24 #2

Exhibition Catalogues Amy Kazymerchyk, Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists, exhibition catalogue, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2024 Kathleen Ritter, How soon is now, exhibition catalogue, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2009 Liz Park, Limits of Tolerance: Re-framing Multicultural State Policy, exhibition catalogue, Centre A, 2007 Laiwan: Distance of Distinct Vision, exhibition catalogue, Western Front, Vancouver, 1992

Reviews of Laiwan's Work Queer Art Speaks to love, hate around world by Robin Laurence, The Georgia Straight, July 31-August 7, 2014 Volume 48, number 2432 QAF extending its reach, draws top talent by Dana Gee, The Province, July 22, 2014 Digital Art Reflections & 10 Seconds in Time ask audiences to stop and consider by Robin Laurence, The Georgia Straight, August 21, 2012, pg. 33