Open Secret: The Third Edition continues as a series composed of screenings, conversations, and workshops with a fourth and final program this season in co-partnership with Reel Out: Kingston’s Queer Film + Video Festival, and Trellis HIV & Community Care.
- More Details + Free Registration – Reserve your free spot in advance (walk-ups also welcome at the door)
To mark the 25th anniversary of Sea in the Blood (2000), Open Secret pays homage to Richard Fung’s iconic video work and its enduring impact on diasporic aesthetics, queer representation, and the evolution of video art.
Screened alongside Steam Clean (1990)—an unforgettable exploration of queer intimacy and resistance—this special program honours Fung’s legacy as a formative voice in video art and a powerful advocate for justice.
We’re thrilled to welcome Richard Fung for a live conversation on his art, life, and long history of organizing. Join us as we reflect on his contributions to queer film, cultural memory, and political imaginings.
Open Secret is curated by Nasrin Himada, Associate Curator, Academic Outreach and Community Engagement.
Steam Clean | Richard Fung | 1990 | 4 min
Two men perform a safe sex public service announcement.
Sea in the Blood | Richard Fung | 2000 | 26 min
A contemplative and heartfelt personal essay about living in the shadow of illness. Multiple layers of image and text are used to reflect on personal history.
Artist Biography
Richard Fung is an artist and writer born in Trinidad and based in Toronto.
His work comprises challenging videos on subjects ranging from the role of the Asian male in gay pornography to colonialism, immigration, racism, homophobia, AIDS, justice in Israel/Palestine, and his own family history. His single-channel and installation works, which include Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians (1984) and its redux Re:Orientations (2016), My Mother’s Place (1990), Sea in the Blood (2000), Jehad in Motion (2007), Dal Puri Diaspora (2012) and Nang by Nang (2018), have been widely screened and collected internationally, and have been broadcast in Canada, the United States and Trinidad and Tobago.
Richard’s essays have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and he is the co-author with Monika Kin Gagnon of 13: Conversations on Art and Cultural Race Politics (2002), later updated and translated into French. He was a Rockefeller Fellow at New York University and has received the Bell Canada Award for outstanding achievement in video art, the Toronto Arts Award for Media Art, the Kessler Award from CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York for a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies and the Bonham Centre Award from Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto for distinguished contribution to the public understanding of sexual diversity in Canada.
Richard is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University.
Supported by the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, Queen’s University, and the City of Kingston Arts Fund.
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