Art Exhibition: SOULS OF NYC CHINATOWN: PASSION, HOPE, RESILIENCE (2021)

Illustration by James Chan
 
Alvin Tsang is one of 15 local NYC artists at this art exhibition that highlights the people who dedicate their lives to serving the Chinatown community. It also celebrates the everyday folks who strive for a better life despite extraordinary challenges. Through the New York Foundation for the Arts’s City Artists Corps Grant, Tsang created “Voices of Protests,” a single-channel video projection reflecting on various protests occurring in a continually shrinking NYC Chinatown. See an excerpt of this work in the virtual gallery.

Virtual gallery by Alvin Tsang
 

Art Exhibition: FIVE CENTS A CAN (2019)

Five Cents a Can hightlight video

Tsang partnered with artist Siyan Wong to expand on her first Five Cents a Can painting exhibition (2018). In their new 2019 show, Tsang and Wong jointly realized several conceptual art installations out of 5,000+ gold-painted soda cans and equipments (carts, boots, bags, ropes, etc.) provided by local can/bottle collectors. Tsang also created a single-channel video projection of these “canners” rummaging through garbage bags at dawn. This exhibition sheds light on the people (mainly immigrants, elderly and women) who must collect cans and bottles for a living in this land of plenty.

Gold Mountain, 2019

This month-long exhibition in NYC included meaningful community engagements through artist talks, an insightful presentation about the canning industry, and a philosophical discussion on the meaning and ethic of work. Several canners attended. Wong and Tsang are planning to create more pieces for upcoming shows.

Street of Gold, 2019

Street of Gold, 2019 (details)

Documentary: WHEN HOME IS ELSEWHERE (WIP)

Written & directed by Alvin Tsang  |  Documentary, work-in-progress  |  Color  |  Stereo

 
This work-in-progress is a sequel to Alvin Tsang’s previous film Reunification (2015). The focus this time is on Tsang’s father – once a pre-teen orphan, a war refugee, a divorcee of several failed marriages, a traumatized immigrant, now in his mid-70’s – who has not yet “found home.” By understanding one man’s experience from the impact of war and politics through this personal film, Tsang wants to humanize the refugee and immigrant experience, a topic that is more relevant now than ever.

When Home is Elsewhere was supported by grants from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Queens Council on the Arts (QCA), and is sponsored by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). Please make a tax-deductible contribution in order to make this meaningful film come to fruition!

Documentary: REUNIFICATION (2015)

Written & directed by Alvin Tsang  |  Documentary, 85 mins  |  Color & BW  |  Stereo 

 
Film over 17 years, Tsang reflects on his family’s migration from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in the early 1980s – fraught with betrayal from his parents’ divorce, economic strife and communication meltdown between parents and children. Tsang turns the camera on his own family, cautiously prodding for answers, but fully acknowledging that the only closure he can get will be from deciding for himself how to move on.

Won Special Jury Prize at San Diego Asian Film Festival, Reunification was screened in the U.S. and internationally in Hong Kong, Berlin and London.

Distributed by Facets (US) and Ying E Chi (HK).

Reviews

“REUNIFICATION explores the past with a Proustian sensitivity. Tsang retrieves an old childhood memory of his family… and in it finds a lost world in which everyone was united and safe.”
-Peter Keough, The Boston Globe

“I loved REUNIFICATION – the structure, juxtapositions, poignancy and clear-eyed honesty…[Tsang’s] work is so clear, sensitive and fine.”
– Meredith Monk, Composer, Director & National Medal of Arts Recipient

“As the greatest mass migration since World War II sweeps the planet, REUNIFICATION is a key contribution to the conversation. A bittersweet, masterful, nuanced portrait… SPARKS EMPATHY AND IMAGINATION — this is what documentary is built for.”
– Jessica Green, Director, Maysles Documentary Center

“It’s a documentary unlike any I’ve seen… REUNIFICATION is the film that’s come closest to feeling like A TRULY DISTINCT ASIAN-AMERICAN [FILM] LANGUAGE.”
– Arthur Chu, SALON and THE DAILY BEAST

Reunification (2015) trailer

“REUNIFICATION beautifully documents modern Asian American immigration from the brave, personal perspective of filmmaker Alvin Tsang. It is A MUST-SEE for anyone interested in understanding the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs of the Asian community.”
– Aurorae Khoo, Writer of “Nurse Jackie” TV series

REUNIFICATION meditates on the nature of memory, family, and art… a pertinent reminder of the humanity at the heart of the immigrant experience, and of the fact that there are human lives behind the statistics and stories we see and hear.”
-Facets Features Blog

“A UNIVERSAL STORY about family, migration, and generations… Whether you are also a first generation American, have family members who don’t like to talk about the past, or have divorced parents, you’ll find a piece of yourself in Tsang’s journey… Everyone uses the tools that they have to try to make sense of their lives, but it is rare that other people have the opportunity to get such an intimate look at that pursuit.”
– Jaime Pond, Editor of Anglonerd.com