LAIWAN is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and educator with a wide-ranging practice based in poetics and philosophy. Born in Zimbabwe of Chinese parents, her family immigrated to Canada in 1977 to leave the war in Rhodesia. Her art training began at the Emily Carr College of Art & Design (1983), and she returned to school to receive an MFA from Simon Fraser University School for Contemporary Arts (1999). Recipient of numerous awards, including the Vancouver Queer Media Artist Award (2008), Laiwan exhibits regularly, curates projects in Canada, the US, and Zimbabwe, is published in anthologies and journals, and is a cultural activist. She was Chair of the grunt gallery Board of Directors (2010-2014) and she teaches in the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College in Washington State, USA (2001-present). She founded the OR Gallery (1983) in Vancouver, Canada, the city where she lives.