Video & Film

Keung's artistic practice examines issues of identity, intimacy and physical experience through the use of video, installation and performance art. Inspired by repetitive daily actions and physical labour, her current work looks at involuntary responses, habitual social behaviours and the training of the mind & body. Works from this series have recently been exhibited at FIFA (curated by Nicole Gingras, Montreal), Transmedial (curated by Nicole Gingras, Berlin), MUU Gallery (curated by Alissa Firth-Eagland, Helsinki, Findland) and Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art (curated by Nina Czegledy and Johanna Householder, Budapest, Hungary).

Lifting for 30

2012, 3:00 super 8, Toronto

30x30 LIFT 30TH Anniversary Commission. In celebration of three decades of filmmaking the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) has commissioned 30 Toronto film veterans and emerging voices to make new works originating on or in the spirit of Super 8mm film.

In one shot, the artist aims to make 30 rotations around a playground bar.

Suite Suite Chinatown

Uncles and Auntie, 35:00 video collaboration project with live musical component

Suite Suite Chinatown, seven artistically diverse, award-winning Chinese Canadian filmmakers from the Greater Toronto Area were asked, “What is your Chinatown?” Their responses are woven into an interesting multi-genre cinematic vision of Chinatown where anything is possible and the unexpected shall be expected.

Suite Suite Chinatown proffers a place where disposable materials take on mythic qualities; where family histories and personal memories unfold in pixilated layers; where the history of any Chinatowns anywhere can be turned on and off like a light switch. Despite their different approaches to the Chinatown theme, these second-generation filmmakers are unified by a nostalgic concern for Chinatown’s past, present and future.

Keung's Auntie and Uncles are brooding and boisterous, re-scanned home-move tributes to family characters familiar to us all.

Bending Over Backwards

2008, 2:40 video, Hong Kong

Attempting to maintain acts of balance, grace and strength, the artist test her physical limits through a series of challenges. These challenges are reminiscent of child play and competition, and yet are more torturous than playful. Bending Over Backwards is a new addition to the endurance series that began in 2006, and was made at the Artist Cultural Outreach Residency in Hong Kong 2008.

Bending Over Backwards and Upside Down - Downside Up are part of a series of performance art videos whereby the artist submits herself to several physical endurance challenges. These challenges are reminiscent of child play and competition, and yet are more torturous than playful. Despite her will to maintain acts of balance, grace and strength, she inevitably succumbs to the body's physical weakness over time.

Distributed at vtape.org

Upside Down - Downside Up

2008, 7:20 video, Hong Kong

Inspired by repetitive daily actions and physical labour, Keung uses media - video, installation and performance art, to discuss the social training of the mind & body. Upside Down - Downside Up was made at the Artist Cultural Outreach Residency in Hong Kong 2008.

Distributed at vtape.org

Hanging

2006, 3:00 video, Toronto

Back dropped by domestic environments, she struggles to maintain acts of balance, grace and strength. Inevitably succumbing to physical weakness, her attempts are seemingly more torturous than playful. Inspired by repetitive daily actions and physical labour, her current work looks at involuntary responses, habitual social behaviours and the training of the mind & body.

Still from 5.3 Paul Wong Projects, Mapping and Marking Commission by the city of Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Public Art, curated by Paul Wong, The Bloedel Conservatory, Vancouver Feb 2010

Distributed at vtape.org