Join the Chinese Canadian Museum and DOC BC YT NT for a panel with Karin Lee, Kimberly Ho, Larry Chin, and Nancy Lee as these Chinese Canadian filmmakers share about their experiences and process working within their communities. The panel will be moderated by Sarah Ling, Exhibition and Program Manager of the Chinese Canadian Museum, who will also speak to local documentary projects.
During the first portion of this program, participants will have an opportunity to view and engage with the Chinese Canadian Museum’s exhibitions on view in the historic Hon Hsing building at 27 East Pender Street.
Join in our conversation about authentic storytelling through documentary and multimedia making, followed by a Q&A with Chinese Canadian filmmakers, each with diverse ties to Vancouver Chinatown. Each panelist will also present a short piece from their portfolio. Network with us after while having refreshments.
Date: Sunday, September 18, 2022
Time: 11 am to 1 pm
Location: 27 E Pender Street, Vancouver Chinatown
Speakers Bio:
Karin Lee 李嘉慈
Karin Lee is a fourth generation Chinese Canadian born and raised in Vancouver. Her films and media art are influenced by her activist parents Wally Lee and Lillian Mah. Her father ran a Chinese communist bookstore from the mid-1960s to ‘80s while her mother was a founding director of the Chinese Cultural Centre and the Sun Yat-Sen Classical Gardens. Karin’s diverse media works reflect Chinese Canadian identity, feminism and social justice in her narrative films, experimental video, site-specific video installations, documentaries and original web series she has written and directed since 1991. Lee received a Gemini from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television for Made in China, about children from China adopted by Canadian families. Her web series Plan B, is a dark comedic drama set in a women’s abortion clinic and Comrade Dad is an experimental documentary. She has just released Incorrigible – a documentary about a white woman incarcerated for having a Chinese boyfriend. Her latest film: Girl with Big Feet (Ts’ekoo Cha Ke) is a period drama set in 1800’s Barkerville, B.C. using Chinook Jargon, Toisan and Carrier dialogue to explore feminist resistance. Karin has also curated and produced film, performance and literary programs, including In Visible Colours: A Women of Colour and Third world Women Film and Video Festival and Symposium, Racy Sexy – a multi-disciplinary festival investigating the intersection of Race, Culture and Sexuality and Canada’s first Chinese Canadian Film Festival. Lee has taught film production at UBC as an adjunct professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Production.
Kimberly Ho 何文蔚
Kimberly Ho 何文蔚 is an interdisciplinary artist, collaborator and performer based on the unceded ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Tseil-waututh peoples, known as Vancouver. Growing up in a working class immigrant family, Kimberly’s work is nourished by collaborative processes and organically aims to be non-hiecharcial. In their artistic practice, they seek to explore their Hakka diaspora through the physical body and food culture, framing new media as a dimension of queer futurisms, and immersive art as a site of liberation.
As a filmmaker, their directorial debut “Dumplings / 餃子” received an Honourable Mention for Most Moving Film at Festival of Recorded Movement, and their experimental short “In fermentation” co-created with Diana Bang was presented at the 2022 Images Festival. Kimberly was also the recipient of Vancouver Asian Film Festival’s inaugural Richard K. Wong Film Fund and winner of the People’s Choice Award for Best Short Film for their participatory documentary “To Make Ends Meat 心頭肉”. Currently, they are co-producing season 4 of “Pride: The LGBTQ+ History Series” with OUTtv, which airs in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Australia and NZ. kimberly-ho.com
Larry Chin 陳慶華
Larry Chin is an active volunteer for cultural organizations and initiatives in Vancouver’s Chinatown. He is an avid photographer in the neighborhood and enjoys capturing landscape, architecture, and candid photography. He is a director of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC, Hakka (Tsung Tsin) Association, and the Chin Wing Chun Society. Born in Malaysia, he immigrated with his family to Fort McMurray, northern Alberta. Larry co-directed the documentary film series Keys to Living Heritage for the Chinatown Societies Heritage Building Association.
Nancy Lee 李南屏
Nancy Lee 李南屏 is a Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary media artist, curator, DJ and cultural producer. Their work stimulates and enlivens space, making a provocative statement about how inescapably interconnected we are with our surroundings. This notion of staging is a constant in Nancy’s work and underpins their projects, from their early work as a filmmaker, through their conception of live events, and into the realms of XR, new media performance and installation, where their art practice continues to coalesce and evolve. Nancy co-founded CURRENT, a feminist intersectional and multidisciplinary initiative, featuring artistic and educational programming. Nancy’s interdisciplinary works have been presented at Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, MUTEK, Berlin International Film Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and more. They are an XR instructor at IM4 Media Lab at Emily Carr University and artistic mentor at Festival of Recorded Movement. They also run a DIY studio in Vancouver Chinatown hosting cross-genre shows, workshops and residencies. As a Sundance Institute New Frontier Alumni, Nancy has been collaborating with Kiran Bhumber on a speculative sci-fi exhibition “UNION”, exploring 3D scanning/printing, XR, and multi-channel sound and video installation. Nancy recently completed a sci-fi writing program at the School for Poetic Computations in NYC and an XR artist residency at Society of Arts and Technology in Montreal.
Sarah Ling 凌慧意
As Exhibition and Program Manager, Sarah Ling oversees the development and implementation of the Chinese Canadian Museum’s programs and outreach initiatives. She holds a BA in English Literature with a minor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies, and a MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia, with a community-centered research background in Chinese and Indigenous relations on Musqueam territory. Born and raised in Prince Rupert, northern BC, she is delighted to establish relationships in support of building the first Chinese Canadian Museum of its kind with individuals and community partners across the province. She is an active volunteer in Vancouver Chinatown. Her documentary work includes the award-winning All Our Father’s Relations. Most recently, she co-directed the Keys to Living Heritage film series and directed the short film Seeds to Success: Story of the H.Y. Louie Family.
