I am participating as moderator at the Richmond Art Gallery for a panel discussion on Gu Xiong’s Waterscapes on 28 October 2010 at 7:30 PM. Our panel discussion is titled Swimming the River.
Gu Xiong’s artistic work focuses on the hybrid identities that come from a migrant experience. He is himself a migrant from Sichuan who sought political refuge in Canada after the Tiananmen incident in 1989. He makes his home base at the University of British Columbia, and his work has been internationally displayed.
Tonight’s discussion features Gu Xiong himself discussing his work, Parm Grewal from Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society speaking about her work on migrant settlement and anti-racism, and Dr. Glenn Deer from UBC English speaking about migration and hybridity in literature. I will also speak on my own work in the transnational Hongkonger Christian church as well as the collaborative project on No. 5 Road (the ‘Highway to Heaven’) in Richmond. The question we address is: what happens when large numbers of people migrate around the world? a question particularly relevant to Richmond, British Columbia, with its 61% visible minority population as of the 2006 Canadian census and its famed 43% Chinese population that has propelled its image as a Chinese ethnoburb.
Admission is free. The Gallery opens at 7 PM, and the event starts at 7:30 PM.
More information can be found at: http://www.richmondartgallery.org/xiong.php. A poster for the event is also available at: http://www.richmondartgallery.org/pdfs/RAG-waterscapes-panel-discussion-flyer.pdf.
Justin K.H. Tse 