Laiwan facts for kids

Laiwan (born in 1961) is a talented artist, writer, and teacher from Zimbabwe. She creates art using many different forms, like writing, music, and performances. Her work often explores big ideas about poetry and philosophy. Laiwan lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

About Laiwan

Laiwan was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1961. Her family moved to Canada in 1977 to escape the war happening in Rhodesia at that time.

She studied art at Emily Carr College of Art and Design, which is now called Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She graduated in 1983. Later, in 1999, she earned a master's degree from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Laiwan has won several awards for her art. One important award was the 2021 Emily Award from Emily Carr University. In 1983, she started the Or Gallery. She wanted to show that it was possible to create and run an art gallery, especially for women. She also helped lead the grunt gallery board of directors from 2010 to 2014.

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

Her Artistic Work

Laiwan's art explores how we experience things with our bodies and feelings. She uses performances, writing, music, and sounds in her projects. She often looks at the idea of "presence" – what it means to truly be in a moment. Her art helps us think about our bodies and emotions in new ways.

You can find her artwork in important collections. These include the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Her video and audio works are also available at places like VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver and V-Tape in Toronto.

Early Art Projects

One of Laiwan's early works from 1986 is called The Mesmerization of Language: The Language of Mesmerization. In this project, she explored how language works, almost like it has its own life.

The artwork has three parts:

• Part One, "OBSESSION : POSSESSION": This part shows a famous ancient Greek poem, Sappho 31, in both its original Greek and an English translation.
• Part Two, "SPELL": Here, Laiwan took the Christian prayer Our Father and translated it from sign language into words. She then broke the text apart, piece by piece, word by word, and even letter by letter. This showed how language can be taken apart and put back together.
• Part Three, "Untitled": This final part moved from words to images of landscapes, showing a shift from language to visual scenes.

In 1989, an art critic named Stephen Hogbin described Laiwan as an artist who looks at how places and our identities are connected through politics.

Art Exhibitions

Solo Shows

• 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 Shows

• 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

Art in Public Spaces

Laiwan has also created art for specific locations, often outdoors.

• In 2016, as part of Vancouver's Public Art Program, she created Barnacle City. This artwork was projected onto different buildings in downtown Vancouver.
• In 2018, Laiwan started the Mobile Barnacle City Live/Work Studio. This was an art installation inside a special bus called the SiteFactory bus. It was part of Emily Carr University's Living Labs project. Mobile Barnacle City was set up in various spots around Vancouver's Chinatown. Other artists, T’uy’tanat-Cease Wyss and Anne Riley, also worked on this project.

Curating Art Shows

In 2014, Laiwan was a curator for an exhibition called Queering the International. This show was part of the Queer Arts Festival and took place at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. As a curator, Laiwan helped choose and organize the artworks for the exhibition.