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.

Laiwan, “Contemplating Trinh Minh-Ha.” Angles XI:1 (January 1993): 26. Collection of SFU Library Special Collections & Rare Books.

There is a complex body of work by Trinh Minh-Ha to think about. Although not excessive in quantity, her four films, three books and various lectures give one a lot to absorb and ponder. They are lucid and thoughtful, yet also, challenging, deliberately strategic and difficult. In our struggles against oppression and racism, it is important to look at Trinh’s strategies in her filmmaking and writings to find the models she is working towards, and the models she is working from, so that we can move in our own work in culture and identity. Read more…

Laiwan, “Emotional Landscapes: Review of Lee Pui Ming’s New CD.” Kinesis. May 1994.

“My music is rooted in improvisation, Chinese music and jazz. It starts from these sources and proceeds to break their boundaries,” says Lee Pui Ming. By now, most of us have witnessed Lee Pui Ming’s dynamic performances (the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, last year’s Racy Sexy Exhibition, or at the UBC Museum of Anthropology). We know her impassioned stage presence, her confidence in her musical knowledge and her playful improvising using the grand piano as piano, percussion instrument, or echo box. Lee’s performances were remarkable because visually her body expressed as much as what we heard musically. Read more…

Laiwan, “From the Displaced View: Midi Onodera talks with Laiwan.” Angles V:5 (May 1988): 15. Collection of SFU Library Special Collections & Rare Books.

Midi Onodera was born in Toronto and currently lives there. With many short experimental films behind her, she came to Vancouver in March to premiere her latest film, The Displaced View at Pacifique Cinematheque. Onodera describes The Displaced View as “a celebration of the acceptance of self, not only as a Japanese Canadian, but as a woman, person of colour, lesbian, immigrant.” The Displaced View is an accomplished film that conveys the complexities that construct personal identity and cultural definition. Read more…

Li Yuen (Laiwan), “International Lesbian Week Poster.” Angles IV:10 (September 1987): 10-11.

We are kissing in the shower. The warm water spraying over our bodies, running gently, tickling down our legs. Your hands slowly caressing my breasts, my nipples erect. Both my hands move up and down your back and caress your smooth ass. Your mound is pressed against mine as you move tenderly to create a friction there of ecstatic pleasure. Read more…

Laiwan, “Review: ZWICCT Diary: Women in Cultural Work.” Kinesis (November 1994): 16.

1991 was the eleventh anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence from colonial rule and Rhodesian apartheid. The nurturing of the imaginations of young women and children had become important in relation to the development of the status of women in particular and of the nation as a whole, especially in the context of the struggles of the post-colonial imperialism most countries and people in the South face. With this in mind, four women and I came together to start a task-based trust called Zimbabwean Women in Contemporary Culture Trust (ZWICCT) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Read more…