2023 VIVA Award – Laiwan
Laiwan / Photo by Nina Skogster
1992 – Distance of Distinct Vision / Point Éloigné de Vision Claire. Belkin Gallery 2022 installation view, photograph by Rachel Topham Photography. Originally curated by Brice Canyon. Materials used: blueprint posters, Cibachrome photos, colour laser prints, found images. https://www.laiwanette.net/#/ddv/
1996, 2021+ ongoing – dotting like flatheads: this is the english I learn, white-out painted on pages from a partial Chinese dictionary found at a dumpsite that would become the Strathcona Community Gardens. Installation views at the Belkin Gallery in 2022, photograph by Rachel Topham Photography.
1987+ ongoing – she who had scanned the flower of the world… Exterior Belkin Gallery Outdoor Screen, UBC, 2022 installation views. Photographs by Rachel Topham Photography. Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2021. Fresh flowers placed into glass slide mounts, scanned as a transparency slide and as an analogue
surface, printed as giclee prints, projected as analogue slides or digital images. https://www.laiwanette.net/#/she-who-had-scanned-the-flower-of-the-world/
2021, 2022 + ongoing – HOW WATER REMEMBERSwas first installed in the group exhibition “Rivers Have Mouths” at the Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden (upper image). Curated by Sarah Ling and Lam Wong for their yearlong public program SOLIDARITY: an Indigenous and Chinese-Canadian artists’ exchange. How Water Remembers is a speculative, process-based project exploring Vancouver’s future sea-level rise, shown as the dragon shaped False Creek waters in the year 2100 (lower image). Using culturally appropriate mythological traditions, the project gently proposes a vision of living and developing biodiverse environments, including the arrival of herons at the Sun Yat Sen gardens in an urban centre as Vancouver’s Chinatown. Individual cards can be collected from twenty vendors in Chinatown to compile a divination deck that has a booklet. Images courtesy of the artist.
https://www.laiwanette.net/#/how-water-remembers/
2019 – MAPLE TREE SPIRAL: the pedagogy of a tree in the city. A process-based site-specific installation exploring the lives of Vancouver street trees at Artspeak Gallery. Installation view, photograph by Dennis Ha. Events included K’emk’emel’ay: Large Groves of Maples with T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss (Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:lo/Metis/Hawaiian/Swiss), and a street tree walk in the DTES with Egan Davis, Faculty of Urban Horticulture, UBC.
https://www.laiwanette.net/#/maple-tree-spiral/ and http://artspeak.ca/maple-tree-spiral/
2019 – WANDER: toward a lightness of being. Commissioned by Translink. WANDER advocates for the lives of phytoplankton and water critters in the area of the Fraser River near the 22nd Street Skytrain Bus Exchange. In collaboration with directed studies students supervised by Dr. Tara Ivanochko at the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, UBC, 22 graphic icons created from microscope imagery, along with haiku poems sourced from the Phyto’pedia glossary, create a ‘hidden object activity’ where audiences are encouraged to find the 22 icons on site. Photographs by: Daniel D Negatu (top & bottom), UBC EOAS (middle) https://www.laiwanette.net/#/wander/
2018 – Mobile Barnacle City. Commissioned by Living Labs at Emily Carr University, Mobile Barnacle City Live/Work Studio was a temporary site-specific installation at the intersection of Keefer and Columbia Streets in Chinatown, Vancouver, with the SiteFactory bus led by Leah Weinstein. (upper image) Installation of barnacle sculptures (created by Emilie Grace Lavoie with volunteers / ECU students). (lower image) Conversations with Chipper John Mah of the 1956 CBC film “Summer Afternoon” (which is the source of my project FOUNTAIN in 2014), that explores Vancouver’s Chinatown through the adventures of two boys, one of whom is Chipper John Mah. Photographs by the artist.
https://www.laiwanette.net/#/mobile-barnacle-city/
2014 – FOUNTAIN the source or origin of anything. Installation view outside the CBC and beside JJ Bean’s kiosk. Curated by Joni Low. A public art project commissioned by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, with a residency at the CBC’s analogue media archives. Installation at The Wall, CBC Plaza, March 2014 to October 2015. The image shows the Georgia Viaduct photographed from Keefer and Columbia Streets, from the 1956 CBC film “Summer Afternoon”. Photo by Joni Low.
http://www.laiwanette.net/#/about-fountain/
2011 – Movement for Two Grannies. Commissioned by OnMain, curated by Paul Wong, for a City of Vancouver’s 125th birthday series. A 10-second videowork for rapid transit Skytrain station video monitors. Cinematographer: John Fukushima. Images courtesy of the artist. https://www.laiwanette.net/#/movement-for-two-grannies/
2006 – DUET: étude for solitudes. Featuring Lori Freedman (bass clarinet, MTL) and Susie Ibarra (drums, NYC), produced at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Sound & Vision Residency in 2005. Installation at YYZ for the Images Festival, photograph courtesy of the artist. https://www.laiwanette.net/#/duet/
2000 – QUARTET for the Year 4698 or 5760. Belkin Gallery installation views. A multimedia, performance installation using 16mm film, sculptural components, a circular screen, audio notation includes audience contributions and digital computing components with analogue printouts on paper. Featuring Lori Freedman on bass clarinet. Upper photo courtesy of the artist, lower photo by Howard Ursuliak.
https://www.laiwanette.net/#/quartet/
1982 – ETHOS: writing with found objects. Laminated bus transfers written into a poem using a limited 14-character transit system alphabet, typed words that could be used to write the poem, photographs courtesy of the artist. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013.
https://www.laiwanette.net/#/ethos/
1983 – African Notes Parts 1 & 2. (upper image) original image digitized courtesy of the artist, UBC Belkin Gallery 2022 installation (lower image), photograph by Rachel Topham Photography. 3 Channel 149 black and white Panatomic-X slide projection and ¼” reel analogue audiotape transferred to digital. Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2021.