Wu Tsang

Born 1982 in Worcester, Massachusetts

Wu Tsang’s films are a part of a body of largely collaborative work produced in the form of performances, events, installations, films, and videos. Merging these artistic forms with grassroots activism and community organizing, he maintains a fluid, unfixed practice intent on questioning the role of the artist in relationship to certain marginalized groups. 

From 2008 until it closed in 2010, the Silver Platter—a MacArthur Park nightclub that hosted L.A.’s Latin/LGBTQ scene as early as 1963—was the venue for the weekly “Wildness” performance art–dance parties organized by Tsang and DJs NGUZUNGUZU and Total Freedom. Inspired by the intergenerational queer participants who formed the core of these events, Tsang produced the 74-minute video Wildness (2012).

Wildness weaves tales of the gay and transgender communities that came together at the Silver Platter with Tsang’s personal portrait of transfeminine identity. Ultimately a story of loss and longing, the film contextualizes the city’s ongoing processes of gentrification and the further displacement of its queer groups. A day in the life of bliss (2014) introduces elements of magical realism and science fiction in order to speak to the social inequalities that shape the present moment.