S F Ho

S F Ho is an artist living on the unceded Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ nations. In the wake of the 1966 and 1967 Hong Kong riots, Ho’s parents came to Turtle Island in the 1970s, eventually settling between the suburbs of Toronto and London Ontario. In London, Ho attended South Secondary School, went to summer camp at Museum London, and participated in the early days of the Unity Project.

S F Ho’s practice considers intersections of culture, history, and embodied experience from racialized, queer perspectives. Informed by a background in photography and performance art, they often incorporate language, sound, and gesture into their work. They also spend a lot of time thinking about math, plants, and perfume. They’re into community building, books, and being sort of boring. Ho has notably presented work through Simon Fraser University Galleries, Hangar (Lisbon), Art Metropole (Toronto), Galerie oqbo (Berlin), RAM Galleri (Oslo), the University of Toronto’s Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Their creative and critical writing has been published through House House Press, SPEC/FIC, Modern Painters, c magazine, West Coast Line, INTER: art actuel, Dysfyction, The Capilano Review, Charcuterie, Western Front, VIVO Media Arts Centre, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.

Since 2018 they have served on the Governance Committee of VIVO Media Arts, guiding the organization through crucial strategic planning initiatives while chairing the Board of Directors.

They founded Slow Wave Small Projects, a land-based art gathering that prioritizes low-income, disabled, BIPOC, and QTIPOC2S practices. They wrote a book about aliens and love called George the Parasite. Their chapbook Green Lines was shortlisted for the Expozine Alternative Press Awards. Visit S F Ho' s website for more information.

Money Mirror by S F Ho

"Money Mirror", 2020, digital photo

"Now money, when it moves into a new tribe, very quickly creates an image of the food, craft, and work there: it gathers around them, holds to them, stays away from the places where none are to be found, and clots near the positions where much wealth occurs. Yet, like a mirror image, it is reversed just as surely as the writing of a piece of paper is reversed when you read its reflection on a boy’s belly. For both in time and space, where money is, food, work, and craft are not: where money is, food work and craft either will shortly be, or in the recent past were. But the actual place where the coin sits, fills a place where wealth may just have passed from, or may soon pass into, but where it cannot be now—by the whole purpose of money as an exchange object."

Samuel Delany, "The Tale of Old Venn," Tales of Nevèryon series
Thanks to Helen Chau Bradley for assistance with this work.

Other work by S F Ho

Distance #1 + #2 (2016)

花4HK (2019) Video 28 min

Sound Place Memory (2018–ongoing). Workshop, artist book, letterpress, installation

vplvplvplvplvpl (2019) Performance with Alexa Mardon. Photo documentation by Juan Contreras.

EDITORIAL TEAM

CURATORIAL ADVISORS
Jamelie Hassan & Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning

COORDINATING EDITOR
Tariq Hassan Gordon

ASSISTANT COORDINATING EDITOR
Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA
Matthew Dawkins, Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi, & Turing Xu.

VIRTUAL TOURS
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Matthew Dawkins, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil, Michelle Wilson, & Turing Xu.

PAST CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Charlotte Egan,, Mackenzie Smith, &  Jade Williamson

OUR STORY

Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website.

This project is supported by the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program:

Thank you to our partners

E M B A S S Y C U L T U R A L H O U S E . C A

London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.