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. The exhibition title references processes related to printmaking, while at the same time speaking to the absent narratives, redacted perspectives and critical refusals that are latent in official publications.
The exhibition observes how literary structures are echoed in the apparatus of 35 mm slide, 16 mm film and analogue video projection. Laiwan’s moving image installations explore how this inheritance informs how we write and read images across mediums. For the exhibition, the Belkin is restoring now-obsolete media works such as African Notes (1982), The Language of Mesmerization / The Mesmerization of Language (1986), Travels in China, 1985 (1986) and MACHINATE (1999), which have not been exhibited since their inception.
Since the early 1980s, Laiwan has made a meaningful contribution to Vancouver’s cultural ecology through her engagement with artist-run centres – including as founder of the Or Gallery in 1983 – and her participation with numerous queer, feminist, multicultural and visual art print publications, notably with local activist collectives Angles and Kinesis, and as editor of Front Magazine from 1994 to 1997. In addition to the audio-visual works, Traces, Erasures, Resists presents Laiwan’s archive of public writing and community interventions.
The exhibition extends outside the Belkin with iterations of the work she who had scanned the flower of the world… appearing on the Belkin Screen and installed on the main floor of the Walter C. Koerner Library, 1958 Main Mall, UBC. Additionally, Laiwan’s work can be viewed at numerous arts and community organizations across the city and more widely; visit Outside the Belkin: Laiwan for details.
Read Amy Kazymerchyk’s curatorial essay.
Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists is guest curated by Amy Kazymerchyk and made possible with the generous support of the Audain Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and our Belkin Curator’s Forum members. This exhibition is part of the 2022 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibition Program. We actively acknowledge that the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̍əm (Musqueam) People.
Image (above): Laiwan, distance of distinct vision / point éloigné de vision claire (detail), 1992. Courtesy of the artist
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Exhibition catalogue from Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists at the Belkin (7 January-10 April 2022) curated and edited by Amy Kazymerchyk with essays and interviews by Laiwan, Olivia Michiko Gagnon, Amy Kazymerchyk, Missla Libsekal, Liz Park, Anne Riley, Scott Watson and Rita Wong. [more information and purchase] -
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.
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Please join us for a reception to celebrate Laiwan’s exhibition Traces, Erasures, Resists, guest curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, which opened quietly in January without fanfare due to BC’s provincial health orders in response to COVID-19. This afternoon event is also a moment to launch The Capilano Review’s 50th anniversary series that features Laiwan’s AGILE (2021), a work commissioned by TCR for this first of three commemorative glossaries.
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On the occasion of the exhibition Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists, the Belkin in collaboration with The Cinematheque presents the film series Traces and Intervals. Laiwan’s Belkin exhibition highlights her works in print and lens-based media since the 1980s alongside her contributions to activist collectives and publications in Vancouver that include numerous film programs and reviews. Traces and Intervals features films by artists Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Midi Onodera, who, like Laiwan, were working in conceptual and formal processes in the early 1980s that sought to intervene stereotypical expectations of identity through a destabilization of language, and a deconstruction of cinematic form.
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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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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.
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Join us for a concert by the UBC Contemporary Players directed by Paolo Bortolussi in a program that celebrates the Belkin’s current exhibition, Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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