Richard Fung’s video works explore the formation of consciousness of race, class, and gender under colonialism in the Caribbean, and challenges subjects ranging from the role of immigration and homophobia to his own family history, among other motifs.  

Islands is an experimental video that deconstructs a film by John Huston to comment on the Caribbean's relationship to the cinematic image. A story of unrequited love by a shipwrecked American marine (Robert Mitchum) for an Irish nun (Deborah Kerr), Heaven Knows Mr. Allison is set in 1944 in the Pacific, but is shot in 1956 in Tobago using Trinidadian Chinese extras to portray Japanese soldiers. The artist's uncle Clive is one such extra.

“Growing up in Trinidad, whenever I saw images of the Caribbean in film or television, they were usually shot in California and featured African-American actors with phony accents. Islands poses questions about visibility, desire, and authenticity: Is it possible to actually see the Caribbean, so affected is our vision by tourism and other mediating lenses?”
—Richard Fung

My Mother's Place focuses on the stories of the artist's mother. Rita Fung is the granddaughter of Chinese indentured laborers brought to Trinidad in the mid-19th century. Now eighty years old and living in Toronto, she has vivid memories of a history lost or fast disappearing. She conveys these with a distinctly West Indian frankness and storytelling style. My Mother's Place weaves interviews with Rita Fung and four women thinkers, an autobiographical narration, home movies, and documentary footage of the Caribbean to explore the formation of consciousness of race, class, and gender under colonialism.

Nang has lived outside the box. Born in a Trinidadian village in 1934, she grew up poor, illegitimate, mixed-race, and female, but she survived by defying convention. She left the first of five husbands when he cheated on her. With no formal training, she danced with choreographer Geoffrey Holder, who later won Tony Awards for The Wiz. In her twenties, she went to work in the Orinoco delta in Venezuela, and saved enough to buy a house. She started university in New York in her 40s. Stubbornness, resourcefulness, and resilience have allowed Nang to surmount life’s scars and tragedies. In this vivid portrait, Richard Fung gets to know his previously unknown first cousin at her current home in New Mexico and on the road in Trinidad.