Vanessa Kwan

Vanessa Kwan is an art curator and artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada who believes in collaborative, site-specific and cross-disciplinary practices.

Background
Kwan was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland. They graduated from Emily Carr University in 2004.

Curatorial
Kwan's curatorial work includes positions held at the Richmond Art Gallery, British Columbia, the Vancouver Art Gallery and grunt gallery, Vancouver where they were Curator (2014-2019) and then in 2019, Program director. According to Kwan, their role as a curator often "consists of producing artist projects that engage with the community, are site-specific, and are generally not situated inside the gallery." Kwan elaborates that they are interested in "art practices that are not focused solely on the gallery, but might be produced elsewhere."

Kwan is a member of Other Sights for Artist's Projects, a public art collective in Vancouver. Kwan is also a founding member of Norma public art collective that began while they were studying at Emily Carr University.

In addition to these artistic and curatorial activities, Kwan works closely with Vancouver-based artists, Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed on Big Rock Candy Mountain, a project initiated in early 2015.

In 2022, they were chosen as Director + Curator, Gallery + Exhibitions at Emily Carr University (ECU) in charge of the Libby Leshgold Gallery and other university exhibition spaces and venues, as well as READ Books, ECU Press, the ECU Art Collection and the university’s outdoor screen.

Artistic practice
Kwan created Vancouver Vancouver Vancouver, a public art work for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

In 2013, Kwan created an interactive piece entitled Everything Between Open and Closed, a work that was temporarily sited at the Bob Prittie Burnaby Public Library as a part of its KIOSK event. For that project, the artist occupied the kiosk for two weeks creating signs that were posted on the walls of the kiosk, as a means of interacting with the community space.

Residencies
In 2017, Kwan completed a post residency in Visual + Digital Arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Calgary, and received the Post Residency Award from the Banff Centre for Residency.