The SFU School for the Contemporary Arts is pleased to welcome Ming Wong as the 2023 Fall Audain Visual Artist in Residence. During his time in Vancouver, Wong will present a public lecture and interact with students and the larger Vancouver community.

Biography
Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) currently lives and works in Berlin. His interdisciplinary practice incorporating performance, video and installation unravels ideas of ‘authenticity’ and the ‘other’ with reference to the act of human performativity. In recent years, he has had strong theatrical interests in the intersection of sci-fi and traditional Chinese culture, particularly Cantonese opera. Wong uses this speculative association to tackle issues such as Chinese modernity, the role of popular culture in building national identities. His works often assemble languages and personalities to create their own “World Cinema”.

Wong’s solo exhibitions include Pictures from the Wayang Spaceship, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore (2023), Fake Daughter’s Secret Room of Shame, ASAKUSA, Tokyo (2019), Notes Toward A Chinese Science Fiction Opera, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2016), Next Year / L’Année Prochaine, Ullens Center of Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015), Me in Me, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2013), Ming Wong: Making Chinatown, REDCAT, Los Angeles (2012). His recent group exhibitions include Signals: How Video Transformed the World, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023), Pier Paolo Pasolini: Tutto è santo. The political body, MAXXI, Rome (2022), and Global(e) Resistance, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020). He has participated in numerous art tri-/bi-ennials in Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul, Busan, Gwangju, Sydney, Brisbane, Aichi, Taichung, Hawai’i, Lyon, Liverpool, Dakar, Jakarta. Wong represented Singapore at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 with the solo presentation Life of Imitation, which was awarded a special mention.

About
The Audain Visual Artist in Residence (AVAIR) program brings artists and practitioners to Vancouver who have contributed significantly to the field of contemporary art and whose work resonates with local and international visual art discourses. Past residences have included, Kota Ezawa, Irena Haiduk, Jackson Polys, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Heba Y. Amin, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Jeremy Deller, Sanja Iveković, Charles Gaines, Samson Young, Alejandro Cesarco, Raven Chacon, Sarah Pierce, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Hito Steyerl, and many others. The visiting artists interact with the students and faculty of the School for the Contemporary Arts as well as the broader visual arts and cultural communities. In keeping with the experimental nature of the School for the Contemporary Arts the terms of engagement are open and change from artist to artist. The cornerstone of the residency is the sharing of artistic research.

The AVAIR program is generously funded by the Audain Foundation Endowment Fund. For more information about the SCA’s AVAIR program and to see the past participants in the program, please visit here.