Artists
Project: Spirit Dragon (精氣火龍) - Public Art Installation
Lam Wong and BaGua Artist Association along with community seniors and
volunteers created the Spirit Dragon to lift the community spirit in Chinatown,
considering recent hardship and struggles from COVID-19.
Located at 133 Keefer Street, the 70-foot public art installation is made of recycling
materials and fabrics. The dragon body is built of colourful recycled fabrics that were
sourced from local Chinatown shops and cut-up calligraphy pieces by Lam Wong.
The calligraphy depicts the history and origin of Fire Dragon Festival and prayer of
compassion and healing.
“Creating positive protective energy is in the heart of the Spirit Dragon. This work is
dedicated to all victims, business and people that are suffering during the pandemic.
As a community we need to heal together. We hope the uplifting spirit of this large
dragon can provide the healing energy and spread in the wind above Vancouver
Chinatown.”
- Lam Wong
Artists: Lam Wong + BaGua Art Association
Lam Wong is the Art Director of the inaugurated 2021 Vancouver Fire Dragon
Festival. He is a Canadian visual artist, designer and curator. An immigrant from
Hong Kong during the 1980s, Lam has had a long stretch of artistic career and
exhibited widely. He sees art making as an on-going spiritual practice. His main
subjects are the perception of reality, the meaning of art, and the relationships
between time, memory and space. He is currently Artist-in-Residence (2019-2021) at
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and Board VP at Centre A (Vancouver
International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art). Current exhibitions includes
Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo at Vancouver Art Galley, and Look
Towards The Sun: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun + Lam Wong at the Chinese Garden.
Lam has lived and worked in Vancouver since 1998.
http://lamwong.com
BaGua Artist Association is an artist collective (Sean Cao and Katharine Meng-Yuan
Yi) founded on the unceded Coast Salish territories (Chinatown, Vancouver). Both
members are first-generation immigrants from mainland China. Cao holds a BFA
from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and Yi holds a BFA in Visual Arts from the
University of British Columbia. BaGua Artist Association's practice focuses on socially
engaged initiatives that are inextricably connected to the artists' identity and
experience of diaspora and migration. Their collaborative practice focuses on public
art, socially engaged art, interactive and participatory performances.
Project: Fire Up The Night - Courtyard Vinyl Murals
Artist: Terry Wong
Terry Wong is greatly inspired by Saturday morning cartoons and commercial
illustrators from the 40s, 50, and 60’s. Wong depicts characters that delight, amuse,
and posture. After working at a number of Vancouver design firms Terry now works
freelance. His illustrations are sought by publishers, magazines, news outlets, and
performers across the globe.
Project: Running Script Dragon - Calligraphy
Artist: Don Wong
Don Wong is a Master Chinese Calligrapher from Anxi, Fujian province of China.
Born in a tea family that has been growing and making tea for many generations,
Don has dedicated his life to practicing the art of tea and the art of calligraphy. Tea
and the life of tea man are the main subjects of his calligraphy. For over seven
decades, his life is dedicated to creating unique calligraphy styles in Li (official), Cao
(grass/cursive), Xing (running) and Kai (regular) Scripts. Don's cursive script is fluid
with well controlled brush strength, a harmony of boldness and softness, full of drama
and spirit. His work has been widely exhibited in Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia,
and collected all over the world.
Project: Incense Dragon - Artwork Banners
“I combined the pearl with a bowl of noodles and the I-ching symbol for fire, and I
took inspiration for the colour palette from the Millennium Gate.” - Rick Leong
Artist: Rick Leong
Rick Leong is a west-coast artist that uses the language of landscape to explore
hybridity between disparate experiences of urban and wild spaces. Drawn from
observation and influenced by traditional Chinese art forms and methodologies,
Leong’s work investigates the interconnectedness of the land and the subjectivity of
human experience. Leong obtained his MFA from Concordia University (Montréal,
2007), and his work was acquired by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. He has
exhibited his work at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Power Plant
(Toronto) and the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver). In addition to having
participated in many group exhibitions at various Canadian and international spaces,
Leong has exhibited solo at Two Rivers Gallery (Prince George), Anna Leonowens
Gallery (Halifax), and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Recent exhibitions include
Arsenal Contemporary (New York), Bradley Ertaskiran (Montréal), Phi Foundation
(Montréal), and the Esker Foundation (Calgary).
Project: Ritual Landscape: The Drive To 2021 - Performance
Artist: Don Chow
Don Chow is a multidisciplinary, Asian-Canadian artist, DJ and producer/director
working in music, media and performance art. He has lived, worked, performed and
exhibited internationally, with a unique background and training in martial and
spiritual traditions, and early beginnings in radio art and electronic music.
Born in Chinatown and raised as a ‘cafe kid’ in Surrey, BC, he is a descendant of
Chinese-Canadian railway workers and head tax payers. A groundbreaking producer
of concerts, hip-hop competitions and underground parties, he was the first to play
Chicago house music on Vancouver radio, as an influential music director at CITR-
FM, in the 1980s.
Over the decades, he has worked with pioneering Black artists and visionary
musicians of techno, hip-hop, free jazz and reggae in Detroit, New York, Philadelphia
and Kingston, Jamaica, alongside local indigenous collaborators. He has curated and
organized traditional and contemporary Asian music programs for Vancouver Asian
Heritage Month Festival; visual and media art exhibitions in Detroit; and networked
performance art events in London and Tokyo.
Most recently, his experimental opera, “dub this road/TAIKOPERA” with a cast
featuring all- women drum groups Sawagi and Onibana Taiko, indigenous
contemporary dance artist Jeanette Kotowich, and performers including hapa
singer/musician Denise Sherwood (with special remixes by legendary industrial
dub/reggae producer Adrian Sherwood) was commissioned and presented as a short
film for Powell Street Festival in 2021.