Heather Keung
Curatorial Projects
Keung has curated exhibitions for numerous festivals and galleries, including the Justina M. Barnicky, Blackwood Gallery, A Space Gallery, and Museum of Civilizations of Canada. As a programmer and curator, she has a strong focus on Asian Diaspora in Canada, Feminism and experimental Media Art. In the last eight years she has presented programs on Patty Chang, Cao Fei, Oliver Hussain, Takeshi Ishida, Nam June Paik, Paul Wong, Ming Wong, and Jin-Me Yoon.
Sprung
Co-curated by Heather Keung & Nadine Villasin
Commission by Sonia Hong, Emily Law and Diana Reyes, Tad Hozumi, Mark Cabuena, Shasha Nakhai, Catherine Hernandez, Randall Okita and Andrea Nann
Innis Town Hall as part of Reel Asian, Nov 13, 2013
still: WAACK Revolt
Sprung brings filmmakers together with an exciting selection of unique performing artists representing a range of hybrid dance forms including waacking, poppin’, Filipino folk + modern, contemporary + conceptual, and funky + athletic. Collaboration was a central component to the project, as the purpose was to build stronger ties between across artistic disciplines. The experience gave participants a rare opportunity to work together outside of their usual roles, in order to learn about each other’s processes and art forms. These relation- ships developed into an expanded dialogue about how both media and performing art forms represent culture, histories, and identity. As a result, five new works highlight how film and dance have the power to influence social change, build community, and affect artistic and cultural discourse.
Lost Secrets of the Royal
Co-curated by Heather Keung & Ben Donoghue
Commission by Cindy Mochizuki, Louise Noguchi, soJin Chun (featured still), and Daichi Saito
A Space Gallery and Blackwood Gallery, Nov 9- Dec 11, 2011
Co-presented by LIFT & Reel Asian
still: Officer Tuba Meets The Happy Ghost
Four contemporary Asian-Canadian artists were invited to produce new work in response to an archive of incomplete and decaying 35mm Hong Kong films salvaged from the basement of what is now Toronto's Royal Cinema by Colin Geddes. The only stipulation for Geddes' donation of this trove of orphaned reels was that they became the source for remaking, transforming and plundering into new works.
RMB City
Co-curated by Heather Keung & Siya Chen
Work by Cao Fei
A Space Gallery, Nov 5 – Dec 11, 2010
Co-presented by: A Space Gallery, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, with support from Vitamin Space and Gendai Gallery.
In the Chinese virtual utopia RMB City, you can dine on roast duck at a night market, indulge in a luxurious foot massage with Karl Marx, apply for a job with the Monkey King, take choreographed tai chi dance lessons, meditate on a flying carpet…all the while discussing universal theory as it applies to life, both real and virtual. RMB City was developed, via the freeware Second Life, by Guangzhou artist Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy) as a conceptual space and experimental platform for her and her collaborators to embark on explorations in art, design, architecture, literature, cinema, politics, economy, society, and beyond. A microcosm that reflects on contemporary China, it is home to multi-faceted conceptual artworks by international artists.