Professional Career

  Richard Fung is a Toronto-based artist,cultural critic, editor, writer and educator (ocad site and History 2003). After studying at the Ontario College of Art, Fung acquired a job as a video animator at Lawrence Heights, a public housing area in Toronto. At his position at Lawrence Heights, Fung simultaneously learned to make video and trained people in the community to produce their own images (Thinking Pictures, 2007 and Overview). These images were later aired on the community television channel. Later on, Fung received his degree in cinema studies (where) and produced his first independent video, Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians in 1984. Fung went on to produce several videos that have won awards and which have been screened in numerous venues and archived in various locations such as the London Institute of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s Art Institute, and the Getty Gallery in Los Angeles (History, 2003). In 2003 and to present day, Fung teaches Integrated Media and Art and Social Change at the Ontario College of Art and Design. “Other teaching positions include Chancellor's Visiting Associate Professor at University of California- Irvine, Visiting Assistant Professor at State University of New York- Buffalo and Visiting Scholar at the Mass Communications Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi”(OCAD site). Prior to his present day role at the Ontario College of Arts and Design, Fung was the coordinator of the Centre for Media and Culture in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at University of Toronto (History, 2003). As an active member of the art community, Fung also serves as a member on the editorial boards of Fuse Magazine and Amerasia Journal, on the board of directors of Caribbean Contemporary Arts in Trinidad, Images Festival, the first Racial Equality Committee of the Canada Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, and as a programmer with the Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival. “A former Rockefeller Fellow at the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University, Richard has lectured across North America, and in Europe, Asia and Australia” (OCAD). Lastly, Fung has written and published many works mainly on aspects of culture and identity such as his essay ‘Looking For My Pens: The Eroticized Asian in Gay Porn Video’ and his book on culture art in collaboration with Gagnon, ‘Landscapes’.

    Awards/Grants

2014: Best Film, Caribbean Tales Film Festival 2012: Samsung Audience Award Toronto Int'l Reel Asian Film Festival 2010: Chalmers Arts Fellowship 2005: Curatorial Writing Award: Essay Contemporary, OAAG 2003: Pioneer Award, Chinese Canadian National Council  2003: Best Experimental Film, Worldwide Short Film Festival  2002: Telefilm Canada Award for Best Film/Video, Images 2001: Toronto Arts Award, Media Arts  2000: Bell Canada Award  2000: Margot Bindhardt Award, TAC Grants from Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Film Development Corporation and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

(OCAD site)