Yau Ching

Yau Ching (b. 1966) is an independent film/videomaker from Hong Kong. She earned a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong, MA in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research in New York, PhD in Media Arts from Royal Holloway College, University of London, and studied Studio Art at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. She is a founding member of Nutong Xueshe, a LBGTIQ organization for cultural advocacy and public education, and currently Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at Hong Kong Lingnan University.

Ching has produced more than ten critically acclaimed films and videos, including We Are Alive (Asia Vision Award Nominee, Taiwan International Documentary Biennial); Ho Yuk (Let’s Love Hong Kong) (Critics’ Grand Prix for Fiction, Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, Portugal); I’m Starving (Silver Prize, Brno16 Film Festival, Czech Republic); Diasporama: Dead Air (Silver Award, Hong Kong Independent Film and Video Awards); The Ideal/Na(rra)tion (Best 20, International Video Art Prize, Germany); Flow (Special Jury Prize, Image Forum, Japan); and Video Letters 1-3, Is There Anything Specific You Want To Tell Me? (Cindy Film Bronze Award). In addition, she has exhibited media installations at Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Japan; Young-un Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul; and New York Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, among others.

The Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship; Asian Cultural Council Arts Fellowship; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; and Japan Foundation Artist-in-residence grant, among others, have helped Ching sustain her artistic practice.

Her continued scholarship in Cultural Studies has led to the publication of several books including, Filming Margins: Tang Shu Shuen, a Forgotten Hong Kong Woman Director (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004) (in English); Sexing Shadows: a study of representation of gender and sexuality in Hong Kong Cinema (Hong Kong Film Critics Society, 2005) (in Chinese); and The Impossible Home (Hong Kong: Youth Literary Press, 2000) (bilingual) which received the Runner-Up Prize from the Chinese Literary Biennial Poetry Section. She has also served as editor for, As Normal as Possible: Negotiating Sexuality and Gender In Mainland China and Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2010) (in English) and Sexual Politics (Hong Kong Cosmos Books, 2006) (in Chinese).