Photo: Phillip Chin
BIO
Lives and works in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Interdisciplinary Visual and Media Artist and Curator
Paul Wong is a media-maestro making art for site-specific spaces and screens of all sizes. He is an award winning artist and curator known for pioneering early visual and media art in Canada, founding several artist-run groups, and organizing events, festivals, conferences and public interventions since the 1970s. Wong has produced projects throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
“Now in his 40th year as a creator of events, performances, videos, pictures, sculptures and cultural institutions, Wong has made himself a virtual intersection of activities both solo and collaborative, affirmative and critical, stoic and ludic.” – Michael Turner, Preview Magazine February/March 2019
Wong was the winner of the Bell Canada Award in Video Art 1992, the first recipient of the Transforming Art Award from the Asian Heritage Foundation 2002 and the inaugural winner of the Trailblazer Expressions Award in 2003, created by Heritage Canada, National Film Board and CHUM Limited. In 2005 he received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art. In 2008 was awarded Best Canadian Film or Video at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. In 2016, the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts. In 2023 he received the Outstanding Artist Award from the Federation of Gay Games, and was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Emily Car University of Art and Design (ECUAD).
Paul Wong recently completed a year-long residency 身在唐人街/OCCUPYING CHINATOWN. Inspired by hundreds of letters and familial artefacts of his late mother Suk Fong Wong, Paul Wong created intimate exhibitions, public art pieces, artist talks, events, workshops, and the website www.occupyingchinatown.com. 身在唐人街/OCCUPYING CHINATOWN was a public art project commissioned by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program in partnership with the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. The Occupying Chinatown book was released fall 2021 and was the finalist for 2022 City of Vancouver Book Award.
He is the Artistic Director and curator of On Main Gallery (On The Cutting Edge Productions Society). Established in 1986 Wong has facilitated hundreds of artists projects, most recently as the Producer and Artistic Director of the Pride in Chinatown festival 2018 to 2022. This annual event focuses and claims and makes a safe space for Pan Asian queer communities to come together and celebrate being out loud and proud in Chinatown.