Sea & Mind: Illusions & Awakening—Mastering Invisible Routes 海 · 心 · 間 Exhibition Opening

artart exhibition openinginstallationsound installationvideoperformanceart exhibitionunderwaterocean

Nov 5

Born on the Pacific island of Nauru and raised in Hong Kong, Fanny Bok Yin Tang is a multidisciplinary artist based in Richmond, British Columbia. She earned a BA in Oil Painting from the University of Calgary in Canada and an MFA in mural painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. Moving between these places and cultures has shaped her understanding of identity, memory and belonging, and continues to inform her journeys across oceans and through her art.

The ocean is both a passage and an archive in Tang’s work: a place of migration and change, and a mirror for the mind. Her paintings trace cycles of growth, transformation, disappearance and return through coral and marine imagery. In Sea and Mind, her first multisensory installation, these images open into a space visitors can enter.

Drawing on Buddhist Satipaṭṭhāna mindfulness practice and underwater fieldwork, Tang brings the fragile life of coral into conversation with the shifting landscape of the mind. Across two zones—Noise Without → Letting Go and Silence Within → Awakening Currents—sound, touch, scent, moving images and light invite visitors to listen and notice. Like the ocean, the mind holds turbulence, quiet and unseen depths.

Resin, transparent plastic, spray-foam coral forms and acrylic paint bring images, colour and fragments of memory into the installation. By reusing and reshaping these plastic-based materials, Tang reflects on how plastic can serve creative purposes, remain in use and take on new meaning. The work invites visitors to consider our relationship with plastic and the choices we make about how it is used and cared for.

The teaching 「欲得凈海，當淨其心」—“To attain Pure Ocean, first purify the mind”—reminds Tang that change begins within and takes shape through our actions. The near shore and far shore can also be states of mind: one shaped by attachment and suffering, the other opening through awareness and letting go. As you move through the installation, consider the passage from polluted water towards a cleaner shore—in the mind and in the world we share.

Saturday, Dec 05, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

(free admission)

https://FannyTangSeaandMind.eventbrite.ca