Wu Tsang

Wu Tsang (born 1982 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is

a filmmaker, artist and performer based in New York Wu Tsang
and Berlin, whose work is concerned with hidden Born 1982
histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of Worcester, Massachusetts, US
performing itself.[1] In 2018, Tsang received a Alma mater School of the Art Institute of
MacArthur "genius" grant.[1] Chicago
University of California at Los
According to Tsang, her films, videos, and Angeles
performances look to explore the "in-betweeness" in
Occupations filmmaker · performer · artist
which people and ideas cannot be discussed in binary
terms.[2] Generally, her films form a hybrid of
narrative and documentary; they do not conform fully to one form or the other.[2]

Her projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Migros
Museum (Zurich), the Whitney Museum and the New Museum (New York), the MCA Chicago, MoCA
Los Angeles and SFMOMA (San Francisco). In 2012 she participated in the Whitney Biennial, Liverpool
Biennial and Gwangju Biennial.[3]

Education
Tsang received a B.F.A. (2004) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.F.A. (2010)
from the University of California at Los Angeles. [1]

Work

Film
Tsang's best-known documentary, Wildness,[4] documents the Los Angeles trans bar "Silver Platter".[5]
Wu Tsang directed and produced the film. It was co-written with Roya Rastegar. The film was premiered
at the MoMA Documentary Fortnight in New York and has been screened at festivals in Canada, the US,
and Chile. Since 1963, "Silver Platter" has been a historic bar that patronised by a predominantly Latin
LGBT community. Wildness documents what happens when a group of young artists host a weekly
performance night at the bar. Documenting the collision between the two LGBT communities, the film
poses questions about community, space, and ownership. In an interview, Tsang describes how this film
represents a number of people who are often stereotyped, such as trans people, people of color, and queer
communities, and she experiments with how to be accountable to the communities that she documents.[6]
Her collaborators include poet and scholar Fred Moten as well as performance artist boychild.[7]

Short films
Wu Tsang's short films include:

Under Cinema (2017): This film follows R&B singer Kelela along for a deep dive into the life
of a black artist. The film is intimately shot on a handheld camera which follows Kelela
through events such as a festival, studio time, and emotional reflections. "The most
memorable moment of Under Cinema is when Kelela speaks to camera and eloquently
dismantles the music industry by pointing out how it is ‘interested in … the currency of
culture you come with as a person of colour’ and that ‘pop music comes from R&B, it’s a
painful music."[8]
Duilian (2015): The film explores the life and writings of Qiu Jin, a Chinese feminist
revolutionary who was executed at the age of 31 for attempting to foment revolution against
the Qing dynasty. Lesser known, and highlighted in the film, is her long-term queer
relationship with calligrapher Wu Zhuying. Wu Tsang plays Wu Zhuying, and long-time Wu
Tsang collaborator, Boychild, plays Qiu Jin.[9] The film illuminates the use of Qui Jin's poems
(translated in english for the first time) and Wushu Martial Arts to create "jarring yet beautiful
scenes."[1]
You're Dead to Me (2013): In suburban California, a Chicana mother is mourning the death
of her trans child two years earlier. On the eve of Dia de los Muertos, everything changes
when Death offers her a choice she could not make in life. The cast includes Laura Patalano
and Harmony Santana. The film was widely shown in LGBT and other film festivals, and
won various awards, including best short and best actress.[10]
Tied and True (2012): Co-written with Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, the film takes place in a
fictional post-colonial African city, inspired by Île Saint-Louis, Senegal. It tells the story of two
star-crossed lovers while exploring the themes of assimilation, alterity and racism.[11]
Mishima in Mexico (2012): Starring Alex Segade and Wu Tsang, the film is inspired by the
1950 novel by Yukio Mishima, Thirst for Love. It takes place in Mexico City, where a writer
and director check into a hotel together to work through their creative process, while
integrating Mishima's work into their own, and into their lives.[12]
Wildness (2012): This film tells the story of the weekly party and clinic Tsang hosted at the
Silver Platter bar in the MacArthur Park area of Los Angeles, California. The film is a
"whimsically fictional account" of the events that transpired at the Silver Platter, and is
narrated by both Tsang and (in Spanish) the Silver Platter. As Tsang stated in a 2016
interview, "The more subjective I could be in telling my own experience of the situation, the
more ethical I could be to my subjects and collaborators."[13] In an interview with Art Basel,
Wu Tsang said she approached this film as more as an activist than a filmmaker. She
continues by saying she "felt there was an important story to tell about the lives of [her]
friends at the bar, many of whom were trans women and undocumented immigrants, often
struggling with overlapping invisibilities, and thriving despite intense conditions of violence
and policing."[14] Wu Tsang describes the making of Wildness as a learning process in
which she taught herself to "write, direct, and edit".[15] Wildness premiered at The Museum
 of Modern Art's Documentary Fortnight in 2012, and Hot Docs Canadian International
Documentary in Toronto.[16]

Feature films

MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022): This is a 75-minute digital silent film accompanied by
live orchestra. It is an adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 classic Moby-Dick, with a post-
colonial reading.[17] It drew inspiration from C. L. R. James’s Mariners, Renegades, and
Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In, which studied the
Melville work as related to colonialist greed and 1950s social hierarchy.[18] Tsang's film
depicts the ship's crew as having partially transcended gender and race, and features the
main characters Ishmael and Queequeg as lovers.[17] The film, supported by the Swiss
theater Schauspielhaus Zürich,[19] premiered in 2022, and was shown at the Thyssen-
Bornemisza Museum in Madrid in 2023.[20]

Art installations
Moved by the Motion (2014– 2015) - is the first in a series of performances and works by
Tsang that inhabits a space between fiction and documentary. This was presented over the
course of 2014–2015 including a live performance at DiverseWorks as part of
CounterCurrent in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell
Center for the Arts (Saturday, April 12, 2014) and a video installation in the exhibition Double
Life at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (December 19, 2014 – March 13, 2015).[21]

Awards and honors

In 2012, Tsang was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film".[6] At
Outfest 2012, Wildness won the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Documentary.[22] Also in 2012, her
work was featured in the Whitney Biennial and the New Museum Triennial. She won the Foundation for
Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2013).[23] In 2014, she was included in the Hammer
Museum's 2014 "Made in L.A." biennial.[24] In 2015 she received a Creative Capital Award for A Day in
the Life of Bliss. Tsang received the MacArthur Genius Award in 2018.[25]

Filmography
Wildness
Mishima in Mexico
Tied and True
You're Dead to Me
Duilian
 Under Cinema

See also
List of transgender film and television directors

References
1. "Wu Tsang – MacArthur Foundation" (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1025/).
macfound.org. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
2. Greenberger, Alex (March 26, 2019). "Take Me Apart: Wu Tsang's Art Questions Everything
We Think We Know About Identity" (https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/wu-tsang-122
24/). ARTnews.com. Retrieved May 23, 2020.
3. "Wu Tsang" (https://creative-capital.org/artists/wu-tsang/). Creative Capital. Retrieved
December 1, 2020.
4. Cheh, Carol (June 30, 2014). "Artists at Work: Wu Tsang" (http://www.eastofborneo.org/articl
es/artists-at-work-wu-tsang). East of Borneo. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
5. "¿Qué pasó con los martes? – WILDNESS THE MOVIE – trailer" (http://www.wildnessmovi
e.com). wildnessmovie.com. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
6. "Wu Tsang | Filmmaker Magazine" (http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/wu-tsang/#.U9JL9
Va4klI). filmmakermagazine.com. July 19, 2012. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
7. Trigger : gender as a tool and a weapon. Burton, Johanna,, Bell, Natalie,, New Museum
(New York, N.Y.). [New York, NY]. 2017. ISBN 9780915557165. OCLC 1011099218 (https://
search.worldcat.org/oclc/1011099218).
8. De Wachter, Ellen Mara (February 2018). "Wu Tsang: Under Cinema" (https://www.proquest.
com/openview/06402239bc8f86241677b6da08f94a3d/1). Art Monthly. No. 413. pp. 27–28.
9. "Artist Wu Tsang on her new film exploring the life of 'China's first feminist', Qiu Jin" (https://
web.archive.org/web/20160403214833/http://www.timeout.com.hk/gay-lesbian/features/751
58/artist-wu-tsang-on-her-new-film-exploring-the-life-of-chinas-first-feminist-qiu-jin.html).
Time Out HK. Archived from the original (http://www.timeout.com.hk/gay-lesbian/features/75
158/artist-wu-tsang-on-her-new-film-exploring-the-life-of-chinas-first-feminist-qiu-jin.html) on
April 3, 2016. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
10. "Official Page, You're Dead To Me – Short" (https://www.facebook.com/Youre-Dead-To-Me-S
hort-621357764545056/info/?__fns&hash=Ac1Ix19Ip_zqjubp&tab=page_info). Facebook.
Retrieved December 17, 2015.
11. Knight, Christopher (June 6, 2013). "Wu Tsang at Michael Benevento Gallery" (https://www.l
atimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-wu-tsang-michael-benevento-gallery-201306
03-story.html). Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0458-3
035). Retrieved March 4, 2019.
12. "Wu Tsang" (http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/wu-tsang/). art-agenda.com. Retrieved
December 17, 2015.
13. Thorne, Sam (February 2012). "In Focus: Wu Tsang | Frieze" (https://frieze.com/article/focus
-wu-tsang). Frieze (145).
14. Jeni, Fulton. "How I became an artist: Wu Tsang" (https://www.artbasel.com/news/wu-tsang-
how-i-became-an-artist-art-basel). Art Basel. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
15. Ballard, Finn Jackson (August 1, 2014). "Wu Tsang's Wildness and the Quest for Queer
Utopia" (https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/1/3/461/24779/Wu-Tsang-s-Wildness-and-th
e-Quest-for-Queer-Utopia). TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 1 (3): 461–465.
doi:10.1215/23289252-2687555 (https://doi.org/10.1215%2F23289252-2687555).
ISSN 2328-9252 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/2328-9252).
16. "Wu Tsang :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts" (https://www.foundationforcontemporaryart
s.org/recipients/wu-tsang). www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved December 1,
2020.
17. Rogers, Thomas (February 20, 2023). "An Artist's Queer Take on 'Moby-Dick' " (https://www.
nytimes.com/2023/02/20/arts/wu-tsang-moby-dick.html). The New York Times. Retrieved
February 21, 2023.
18. Yerebakan, Osman Can (April 28, 2022). "Artist Wu Tsang Dives Into the Depths of 'Moby
Dick' With Three Simultaneous Shows About Melville's 'Flamboyant, Queer' Saga" (https://n
ews.artnet.com/art-world/wu-tsang-moby-dick-2104448). artnet.
19. Tyner, Ashley (January 13, 2023). "Wu Tsang on reclaiming Moby Dick" (https://i-d.vice.com/
en/article/pkg5kg/wu-tsang-on-reclaiming-moby-dick). i-D. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
20. "El Thyssen se sumerge con la instalación "De ballenas" en el mar de Wu Tsang" (https://w
ww.lavanguardia.com/vida/20230220/8770729/thyssen-sumerge-instalacion-ballenas-mar-w
u-tsang.html). La Vanguardia (in Spanish). February 20, 2023. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
21. "Wu Tsang: Moved by the Motion" (https://www.diverseworks.org/in-the-works/exhibtion-perf
ormance/wu-tsang/). DiverseWorks. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
22. "Outfest 2012" (https://archive.today/20120628225646/http://www.outfest.org/fest2012/awar
ds.html). outfest.org. Archived from the original (http://www.outfest.org/fest2012/awards.htm
l) on June 28, 2012. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
23. "Wu Tsang :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts" (https://www.foundationforcontemporaryart
s.org/recipients/wu-tsang). www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved April 19,
2018.
24. "Made in L.A.: Wu Tsang" (http://hammer.ucla.edu/made-in-la-2014/wu-tsang/). Hammer
Museum. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
25. "Wu Tsang – MacArthur Foundation" (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1025/).
www.macfound.org. Retrieved March 4, 2019.

External links
Wu Tsang (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4150183/) at IMDb
Stanley, Eric A.; Tsang, Wu; Vargas, Chris (2013). "Queer love economies: Making
trans/feminist film in precarious times". Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist
Theory. 23: 66–82. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2013.792634 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F074077
0X.2013.792634). S2CID 144634911 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:14463491
1).
http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.com/storage/Dean%20Spade%20make-shift%20web.pdf
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20140728023147/http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.c
om/storage/Dean%20Spade%20make-shift%20web.pdf) July 28, 2014, at the Wayback
Machine "Wildness" essay by Dean Spade
http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.com/storage/WB%2712_Tsang.pdf Archived (https://web.
archive.org/web/20140728004312/http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.com/storage/WB%271
2_Tsang.pdf) July 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine "Wildness" essay by Wu Tsang in the
Whitney Biennial Catalogue
http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.com/storage/nifstc_wu%20roya.pdf Archived (https://web.
archive.org/web/20140728024018/http://wildnessmovie.squarespace.com/storage/nifstc_w
u%20roya.pdf) July 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine A Conversation between Wu Tsang
and Roya Rastegar
Sister of the sword: Wu Tsang, the trans artist retelling history with lesbian kung fu (https://w
ww.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/17/wu-tsang-boychild-devotional-document-tra
ns)[1]
 Interview with Art Basel (https://www.artbasel.com/news/wu-tsang-how-i-became-an-artist-ar
t-basel)
1. Judah, Hettie (May 17, 2017). "Sister of the sword: Wu Tsang, the trans artist retelling
history with lesbian kung fu" (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/17/wu-ts
ang-boychild-devotional-document-trans). The Guardian. Retrieved March 23, 2018.

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