JeeMin (left) and Sheung-King (right).
Speaker Bios:
Sheung-King, Aaron Tang is a writer and educator. His debut novel, You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked (Book*hug Press, 2020), is a finalist for the 2021 Governor General's Award, a finalist for the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, longlisted for CBC’s Canada Reads 2021, named one of the best book debuts of 2020 by the Globe and Mail, and optioned for film adaption by Fluent Films, Montreal. Sheung-King is also named one of 30 Canadian writers to watch in 2022 by the CBC. His second novel, BATSHIT SEVEN, published by Penguin Random House Canada in 2024 won the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Born in Vancouver, Sheung-King grew up in Hong Kong. His work examines “the interior lives of the transnational Asian diaspora” (Thea Lim, The Nation). Sheung-King taught creative writing at the University of Guelph and Sheridan College. He now works as a humanities teacher at Avenues: The World School, Shenzhen and splits his time between China and Canada.
JeeMin Kim is an artist with a BA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, an MA in Critical Practice from the Royal College of Art, London, and a PhD in Painting from Hong Ik University. Her ongoing research and solo exhibition series, Prototype Temple, unfolds within constructed stage-like spaces where forms of various civilisations and ruins are layered together. The project questions the fictive nostalgia produced by Western archaeology and colonial perspectives. Kim’s works have also been featured at Horse Hospital Gallery, London (2019), Art Council Korea (2021), Culture Station Seoul 284 & Namsan Library, Seoul (2023), and K&L Museum, Seoul (2024).
On December 3, 2025, a talk titled “Narratives to Contextualize Feelings” featuring author Sheung-King and artist JeeMin Kim was held at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. The event was organized by the Global Taiwan Studies Initiative at the Asian Institute.
Both Sheung-King and JeeMin Kim, as creators with lived transnational experiences, explore the theme of Asian diaspora in their works. In Sheung-King’s novel You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked, he tells the story of a couple traveling to different countries and cities in Asia, including Taiwan, Tokyo, and Macau, while in Batshit Seven, he writes about a millennial student returning to Hong Kong and navigating his life and the city’s protest movements. Both novels engage with transnational diasporic experiences and narratives in the postcolonial context. Similarly, JeeMin Kim, as an artist, continually employs art research and solo exhibitions to express her understanding of diaspora. Together, they collaborated the performance art Displaced Nostalgia: Itch, which was later presented at Inter/Access on December 6th, 2025.
Displaced Nostalgia is an interdisciplinary art project that brings together performance, writing, and installation. This project is not only created by two artists, but also invites audiences to join the conversation during the performance. This project was previously presented in Hong Kong and shown again in Toronto in December, Toronto, as part of the 24th Annual IA Current Exhibition, Edging the Unscratchable Digital Itch, where it continued to engage audiences through participatory writing guided by the artists.
During the talk, Sheung-King and Kim first discussed how literature carries social meaning from individual experience to broader collective experiences of diaspora, referencing two of Sheung-King’s novels. then shared the stories behind Displaced Nostalgia, explaining how they conceptualized and assembled the materials used in the project. They also discussed their creative process, including experiments with other artistic forms such as digital art. Finally, they spoke about the inspirations behind the work, which draws on poetry, performance, and multiple artistic practices.
Kim also shared her experiences of living abroad in the UK during her studies, where she began to recognize her diasporic identity, and that was something she had not strongly felt while living in South Korea. At the same time, she discovered and developed her aesthetic interests.
In the end, the two speakers shared stories behind their performance in Hong Kong, noting that it lasted longer than they had initially anticipated. They also encouraged the audience to participate in the upcoming performance in Toronto, where they hope to once again bring diaspora art to the public.