Over the course of her career, Laiwan has nurtured extended connections to many arts and community organizations across the city through her engagement with artist-run centres and her participation with queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications. As a way of honouring and highlighting these relationships, the Belkin is cross-promoting events that Laiwan is engaged in across the city and more widely. This list is growing and changing; check often for updates.
The Libby Leshgold Gallery is launching Laiwan’s new video work PANDEMIA — The Movie, as part of the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program for Emily Carr University’s Urban Screen. PANDEMIA — The Movie (2021) is a sequel to Barnacle City — The Movie (2016), continuing Laiwan’s explorations into mock sci-fi “tiny action” movies. It is a speculative fiction, imagining a world of interbeings, when what we consider “alien” return home to a place of their belonging. Read more…
Massy Arts hosts a window installation consisting of four large posters by Laiwan as part of phase one of How Water Remembers, a collaboration with Laiwan, Karlene Harvey, Yao Xiao, T’uy’tanat-Cease Wyss, Angela Danyluk and Sean Cao. How Water Remembers explores the path of water and future rising sea levels in relation to cultural stories and includes a socially engaged, site-specific exploration into biodiversity and cultural diversity in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Read more…
What is the future of “Chinatowns”? While the history of racial enclaves is embedded in histories of xenophobia and racism, Chinatowns – as a theme and as a space – have become a nexus of social tension, and simultaneously an intersection of community organizing on intergenerational issues of social justice. In this panel with Laiwan and Kimberly Wong, we explore these imbricated themes of a mutating yellow peril xenophobia, cultural capital, gentrification, displacement, neoliberalism/boba liberalism, exploring what “Chinatown” might hold in our imagining of futures. Read more…
Image by Janice Wu.
The project, How Water Remembers returns in its second phase, with two ways to experience local places and ecology, and learn about sea level rise. Ten Guardian Creatures that did live or could live in False Creek have been placed in ten bus shelters across the city for citizens to find and “collect”. The first five people to collect all ten win a set of Guardian Creature Cards that were designed by Laiwan, with illustrations by Karlene Harvey, Marlene Yuen and divination texts by Cindy Mochizuki. Read more…
Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists highlights the artist's attention to the material and symbolic vocabularies of print and lens-based media between 1980 and 2000 and features her early interventions into the logic of the book form and the ideology of historical and encyclopedic genres. Guest curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, the exhibition title references processes related to printmaking, while also speaking to the absent narratives, redacted perspectives and critical refusals that are latent in official publications.
[more]Tours and discussions of Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists can be arranged according to current COVID-19 safety protocols from Tuesday to Friday for groups and classes, lasting 50 minutes and longer. For more information, please contact Belkin Public Programs by email at belkin.tours@ubc.ca or by phone at (604) 822-5600.
[more]From January to April, the Belkin's Outdoor Screen sets a number of works in relation to one another, drawing associations between the exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists in the gallery, the longterm artist's residency in the Outdoor Art program and the affinities to be found with research partners on campus.
[more]The following are resources related to the artists in Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. This list is not exhaustive, but rather comprised of suggested readings compiled by researchers at the Belkin. These readings are intended to provide additional context for the exhibition and act as springboards for further research or questions stemming from the exhibition, artist and works involved. Following the introduction, resources are arranged along the themes of traces, erases and resists as explored through and adjacently to Laiwan’s work. This compilation is an evolving and growing list, so check back in the future for more additions.
[more]Laiwan writes, "Begun in 1987 investigating the questions, What is an image? What is a photograph?, she who had scanned the flower of the world... is an ongoing project where I collect flowers from the city I am showing in, placing the petals into slide mounts."
[more]How do we respond to archives both public and private? In this come-and-go event, artists Laiwan, Elizabeth MacKenzie and Cindy Mochizuki respond to artist Christine D'Onofrio's online project, Intuition Commons and the Belkin Gallery's Archive. The activities are open for viewing, listening and conversations throughout the event. Light refreshments will be served.
[more]On January 17, Laiwan and curator Amy Kazymerchyk walked through the Belkin discussing their exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. The two touched on the latent traces, erasures and resists in the artistic and curatorial processes behind the exhibition. While the tour was to take place in front of a live audience, COVID-19 restrictions required that the conversation take place behind closed doors.
[more]Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists highlights the artist’s attention to the material and symbolic vocabularies of print and lens-based media between 1980 and 2000, and features her early interventions into the logic of the book form and the ideology of historical and encyclopedic genres. Since the early 1980s, Laiwan has made a meaningful contribution to Vancouver’s cultural ecology through her participation with numerous queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications. In addition to the audio-visual works, Traces, Erasures, Resists presents Laiwan’s archive of public writing and community interventions. In addition to showing these writings and works in the gallery, the Belkin includes here a selection of the artist's writings for the duration of the exhibition.
[more]African Notes Parts 1 and 2 are composed of photographs that Laiwan took on a trip home to her birthplace of Zimbabwe in 1982, two years after the country’s independence.
[more]Celebrate Family Day this year with a take-home art activity inspired by drawing techniques used by artist Laiwan in our current exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists. Interested in learning more in person? Visit the Belkin for a short, kid-friendly tour that highlights two of the artist's works.
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