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Filmmaker Richard Fung explores the contrast between the sea’s beauty and perceived “dirtiness” in his work, he told an audience at Franklin Hall 312 Friday.

“I find that beauty is pretty much everywhere in cinema,” said Fung, who spoke and showed his work over a two-day visit that was part of the of the fall Themester’s Interrogating Beauty series.

Friday’s events, dubbed “shorts night,” featured screenings of Fung’s short films, including Dirty Laundry, Islands, The Way to My Father’s Village and Sea in the Blood.  Fung’s feature-length video essay, Re:Orientations, was screened the next night. Question and answer sessions followed the screenings on both nights.

Fung is a professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design where he teaches Integrated Media and Social Change. His single-channel and installation works have been broadcast in Canada, the United States and Trinidad and Tobago.

Fung said he is interested in how beauty intersects with race, gender and sex. He finds there is a fine line between being an educator and an artist in his work.  More than anything, he said, he feels as though he works as an activist.

“I really never thought that my investment was within the art world,” he explained after Friday’s screenings. But he does feel the need to call himself an artist now that he teaches artists.

Born in Trinidad, Fung is inspired by the cleansing properties of water. It is a motif that appears in much of his work and is made even more powerful when juxtaposed by society’s view of “queer dirt.”

Fung’s short film Sea in the Blood discusses his sister’s death and his partner’s battle with AIDS. Re:Orientations is a look into the lives of seven queer pan-Asian Canadians, who were featured in Fung’s 1984 documentary, Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians. This was only the second time Re:Orientations was screened in the U.S.

Fung uses different forms of video in his work. His films often float between home videos, obscure clips and videos that have a more concrete storyline. His use of wipes and text in his films are reflections of new technology at the time of film production and his own thoughts. Text appears often in his short Sea in the Blood and delivers powerful messages.

“Things like talking about my relationship to my mother in relation to my sister’s death was something that I couldn’t quite say,” Fung said. “And then there are things like the lines of the Joni Mitchell song for those of you who know that song. I want you to sing it in your head.”

Senior film student Joshua Byron was instrumental in bringing Fung to campus. They said taking a class with associate professor Terri Francis planted the idea of bringing Fung to Bloomington. They saw how Fung’s work on race and sexuality could fit into Themester’s beauty theme.

After the talk, Bryon was pleased with the effort.

“Seeing how everyone reacted to the films when they have different access points to it was great,” Byron said.