Vanessa Kwan


Vanessa Kwan is an artist, writer, and curator based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Background

Curatorial

Kwan's curatorial work includes positions held at the Richmond Art Gallery, British Columbia, grunt gallery, Vancouver and the Vancouver Art Gallery. According to Kwan, her 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 she 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.
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.

Artistic Practice

Recently, 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.