Published in 2019
192 pages
Amy Fung is a writer, researcher and curator born in Kowloon, Hong Kong. She spent her formative years in and around Edmonton on Treaty 6 Territory. Before I was a Critic I was a Human Being is her first book. Her writing has been published and commissioned by national and international publications, galleries, museums, festivals, and journals since 2007. Her multifarious curatorial projects have spanned exhibitions, cinematic and live presentations, as well as discursive events across Canada and abroad.
What is this book about?
Before I was a Critic I was a Human Being is the debut collection of creative nonfiction by Amy Fung. In it, Fung takes a closer examination at Canada’s mythologies of multiculturalism, settler colonialism, and identity through the lens of a national art critic.
Following the tangents of a foreign-born perspective and the complexities and complicities in participating in ongoing acts of colonial violence, the book as a whole takes the form of a very long land acknowledgement. Taken individually, each story roots itself in the learning and unlearning process of a first generation settler immigrant as she unfurls each region’s sense of place and identity.
