Oceanic Asias: Richard Fung | Artists in Conversation
Richard Fung and Shani Mootoo
Thursday, October 15, 2026 | 5:30 PM
Djavad Mowafaghian World Arts Centre (Room 2555)
911吃瓜 School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W Hastings St., Vancouver
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Please join distinguished queer Asian Trinidadian Canadian artists Richard Fung (Professor Emeritus, OCADU) and Shani Mootoo (Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence, 911吃瓜) for a wide-ranging conversation about art, activism, and friendship.
Oceanic Asias: Richard Fung is presented as part of the Global Asias 30th Anniversary Speaker Series & the Margaret Lowe Benston Lecture Series in Social Justice
Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 911吃瓜 David Lam Centre, 911吃瓜 Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, 911吃瓜 Global Asia Program, and 911吃瓜 Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology
Biographies
Richard Fung is a video artist/filmmaker and writer, and Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University. His work probes the intersection of queer sexualities and pan-Asian identities, the history and politics of Caribbean culture, global justice, and his own multi-generational, multiracial Chinese Trinidadian family. He is a co-founder of Gay Asians of Toronto in 1980 and has been active in many queer and anti-racism organizations, most recently around justice for Palestinians. Among other honors, he is the recipient of the 2000 Bell Canada Award for outstanding achievement in video art, the 2015 Kessler Award for significant contribution to LGBTQ Studies and the Bonham Centre Award for distinguished contribution to the public understanding of sexual diversity in Canada.
Shani Mootoo, born in Ireland and raised in Trinidad, relocated to Canada in her early twenties. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) in 1980 and a Master of Arts in English and Theatre from the University of Guelph in 2010. She practiced initially as a video maker and visual artist, and has more recently concentrated on novel writing, poetry and photo-based work. Her novels include Starry Starry Night, Polar Vortex,鈥痑nd Cereus Blooms at Night. A four-time nominee for the Giller Prize, her work has been long-listed for the Booker Prize and鈥痶he鈥疘MPAC Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Prize. Her poetry books include鈥疧h Witness Dey!, Cane | Fire,鈥痑nd鈥疶he Predicament of Or. Mootoo has served as writer-in-residence at universities internationally. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award, The National Library鈥檚 Library and Archives Scholar Award and the Blue Metropolis Violet Literary Prize. She is the 2026-2027 Tallman Writer-in-Residence at 911吃瓜.
Related Event
Film Screening (BC Premiere): The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 7:00 PM
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema (Room 3200)
911吃瓜 School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W Hastings St., Vancouver
Post-screening discussion with Richard Fung, Phanuel Antwi, and Chris Chong Chan Fui.
