Explore how Don Kwan’s art connects historical and contemporary experiences by reflecting on Chinese Canadian history. Through his creative process, Kwan weaves together cultural heritage and personal identity, offering new perspectives and enriching conversations about the Chinese diasporic experience in Canada.

A third-generation Chinese Canadian, Don Kwan 关日安 turns to his own experiences and challenges of being a gay, East Asian artist as a way to ground in broader conversations about identity, representations, and intergenerational memory-making in the diaspora. Kwan regularly draws from common and powerfully symbolic found objects and forms. He redeploys them in provocative, and playful ways; delivering complex, and nuanced concepts in an open framework for interpretation that evokes both familiarity and wonder.