Henry Tsang

User Bio

Henry Tsang is a visual and media artist and occasional curator whose work incorporates digital media, video, photography, language and sculptural elements in the exploration of the relationship between the public, community and identity in the new global order. Projects in the public sphere range from community-based curatorial and engagement practices to permanent commissioned artworks. His current project, Maraya, with Glen Lowry, M. Simon Levin et al, explores the uncanny relationship between Vancouver’s False Creek and the Dubai Marina in the UAE. Video installations such as Orange County, 2004, and Olympus, 2006, shot in California, Beijing, Torino and Vancouver, examine overlapping urban and socio-political spaces; and Napa North, 2008, looks at the relationship between wine, real estate and cultural translation in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. His Welcome to the Land of Light, is a 100 metre-long installation located on the seawall handrail along Vancouver's False Creek. Comprised of fibre optic cable lighting and marine-grade aluminum lettering, it literally underscores Chinook Jargon, a 19th Century local trade language, and the English that replaced it, to speak about the promise of technology and how different cultures have come to live together in that part of the world.

Curatorial projects include Self Not Whole: Cultural Identity & Chinese-Canadian Artists in Vancouver, 1991; Racy Sexy: Race, Culture and Sexuality, 1993; and City at the End of Time: Hong Kong 1997, 1997), spanning the local, national and international. Henry Tsang received a BFA from the University of British Columbia and a MFA from the University of California, Irvine and is currently an Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada.