Richard Fung
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Fung lives and works in Toronto. His work comprises challenging videos on subjects ranging from Caribbean foodways to the role of the Asian male in gay pornography, refugee rights, police racism, HIV/AIDS, justice in Palestine, and his own family history rooted in indentureship.
His single-channel and installation works, which include Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians (1984) and its redux Re:Orientations (2016), My Mother’s Place (1990), Out of the Blue (1991), Sea in the Blood (2000), Jehad in Motion (2007), and Dal Puri Diaspora (2012), have been widely screened and collected internationally at institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Ottawa as well as at many community venues.
Fung's essays have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and he is the co-author with Monika Kin Gagnon of 13: Conversations on Art and Cultural Race Politics. Fung sat on the first Racial Equality Committee of the Canada Council for the Arts and on the Toronto Arts Council. In 1980, he co-founded Gay Asians Toronto, the first organization for racialized LGBTQ+ people in Canada.
Fung is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University. Career honours include the Bell Canada Award for outstanding achievement in video art (2000), the Toronto Arts Award for Media Art (2001), the Kessler Award from CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York, and the Bonham Centre Award from Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto for distinguished contribution to the public understanding of sexual diversity in Canada.