Laiwan

Laiwan (born 1961) is a Zimbabwean interdisciplinary artist, art critic, gallerist, writer, curator and educator. Her wide-ranging practice is based in poetics and philosophy. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Biography
Laiwan was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1961. Her family emigrated to Canada in 1977 to leave the war in Rhodesia.

She graduated from Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1983. In 1999, she received an MFA from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.

She is an interdisciplinary artist interested in poetics and philosophy. Laiwan has won several prizes, such as the 2021 Emily Award from Emily Carr University. She founded the Or Gallery in 1983, where her intent was to dispel myths about the impossibility of founding and operating a gallery, particularly for women. She was chair of the grunt gallery board of directors from 2010 to 2014.

Laiwan teaches in the Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College in Washington State.

Artistic practice
Laiwan investigates embodiment through performativity, writing, music, and audio works, in a variety of media. Her practice unravels and engages in the idea of presence by way of bodily and emotional intelligence.

Her work is held in Vancouver Art Gallery collection, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Collection,   and other private collections, and her time-based work is available from VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver,  and V-Tape in Toronto.

Early work
In Laiwan's 1986 slide sequence work, The Mesmerization of Language: The Language of Mesmerization, she deals with language as a structure which has a life independent of its conveyed meaning. There are three parts to this artwork. Part One, titled "OBSESSION : POSSESSION" shows the poem Sappho 31 in both the original Greek and as an English translation. Part Two is titled "SPELL", wherein Laiwan translates the Christian prayer Our Father from sign language into words, deconstructing and breaking apart the text, phrase by phrase, word by word, and letter by letter. "Untitled", which is Part Three of the project, moves from language into images of landscapes.

In the exhibition catalogue for Political Landscapes I (1989) at Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Stephen Hogbin describes Laiwan as an artist who examines the political relationship of geography and identity.

Solo exhibitions

 * Laiwan: Traces, Erasures, Resists, The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC, 2022
 * How Water Remembers, Massy Arts, Vancouver, 2021
 * Fountain, The Wall at the CBC Plaza, commissioned by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, 2015
 * Loose Work, Or Gallery, Vancouver, 2008 and also at On Main, 2008
 * Duet: Étude For Solitudes, YYZ Artist’s Outlet / Images Festival, Toronto, 2006
 * Quartet for the year 4698 or 5760: Improvisation for four projectors, with Lori Freedman, Open Space Gallery, Victoria, 2002

Group exhibitions

 * Urban Screen, with PANDEMIA  — the movie, Libby Leshgold Gallery, 2021-2022
 * Thought, outside, Curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, Western Front, Vancouver, 2020
 * Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT, Curated by Lorna Brown, The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC, 2018
 * Through A Window: Visual Art and SFU 1965–2015; SFU Galleries, Vancouver and Burnaby, BC, 2015
 * Da Bao: Take Out, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC, 2013
 * Da Bao: Take Out, Curated by Shannon Anderson / Doug Lewis, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, ON, Mississauga Art Gallery. ON, 2012
 * c.1983: Parts 1&2, Curated by Helga Pakasaar, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, BC, 2012
 * Everything Everyday, Curated by Bruce Grenville, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2010
 * How Soon Is Now: Contemporary Art from Here, Curated by Kathleen Ritter, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2009
 * Limits of Tolerance: Re-framing Multicultural State Policy, Centre A Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2007
 * Group Search: Art in the Library, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, BC, 2007
 * rupture : rupture, Artspeak, Vancouver, BC

Site specific works
In 2016 as part of the City of Vancouver's Public Art Program, the Coastal City series, Laiwan displayed Barnacle City, which was projected on various buildings throughout downtown Vancouver. In 2018, Laiwan started the Mobile Barnacle City Live/Work Studio, an installation created in the SiteFactory bus, which was a part of Emily Carr University's Living Labs Ten Different Things project series. Mobile Barnacle City was installed in various locations around Chinatown in Vancouver. The project also involved T’uy’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley.

Curatorial
In 2014, Laiwan curated Queering the International, an exhibition part of the Queer Arts Festival, which took place at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. The exhibition examined issues of sexual identity.

Catalogues

 * Kathleen Ritter, How soon is now, exhibition catalogue, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2009
 * Liz Park, Limits of Tolerance: Re-framing Multicultural State Policy, exhibition catalogue, Centre A 2007

Reviews of Laiwan's Work

 * Queer Art Speaks to love, hate around world by Robin Laurence, The Georgia Straight, July 31-August 7, 2014 Volume 48, number 2432
 * QAF extending its reach, draws top talent by Dana Gee, the Province newspaper, July 22, 2014
 * Digital Art Reflections & 10 Seconds in Time ask audiences to stop and consider by Robin Laurence, The Georgia Straight, August 21, 2012, pg. 33

Writing

 * LUNG: Toward Embodying in DAMP, anthology on Vancouver’s media artists, Anvil Press, Vancouver, 2008
 * Ed Pien: Drawing Hauntology feature article in Canadian Art, Summer 2007, Vol. 24 #2