Paul Wong is a media-maestro hailing from Prince Rupert, BC. He is an award winning artist, curator and organizer of public interventions and is known for pioneering early visual and media art in Canada since the mid-1970s. His work varies from conceptual performance to narratives, meshing video, photography, installation, and performance with Chinese-Canadian cultural perspectives and is known to explore issues of race, sex, and death.

Patti & Lawrence

Patti & Lawrence is a mash-up of seemingly disparate parts. This video work is constructed from original and found 35mm slides, original video and sourced YouTube television moments and presented as split screen montages. The sequences feature punk singer/songwriter Patti Smith and her life over 2 days in Vancouver in 1978. The 150 original slides were taken by Wong. This includes hanging out on the streets, eating, shopping and coverage of her concert. Layered on top of this is Smith’s 1976 SNL (Saturday Night Live) performing ‘GLORIA’ and moments from her 2016 concert in Seattle.

The 250 images of Lawrence Waturi Iwasaki (1933-2003) are found on 35mm slides, most can be dated between 1959-1964. The snapshots of Lawrence, colleagues and friends are stylish and glamorous at home, play, travel and work as an award winning hairstylist. He was the owner of Maison Lawrence a leading hair salon in Vancouver, Canada in the 1960s -1990s.

Lawrence was the oldest child of the Iwasaki family; his family was displaced and relocated into Japanese Internment Camps during WWII.

 These photographs are juxtaposed with two versions of Leslie Gore’s feminist hit “You Don’t Own Me”. The original 1966 live television performance of the original with the 2015 version by Grace featuring G-Eazy.