Narratives to Contextualize Feelings: Conversations with author & artist Sheung-King/JeeMin Kim

Sheung-King's writings concern "the interior lives of the Asian diaspora" (Thea Lim, The Nation). From his book You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked—which follows a couple's relationship as their personal histories intertwine with the spaces they travel to: Taiwan, Tokyo, and Macau—to Batshit Seven’s international millennial student returning to Hong Kong, jobless and constipated during the protests, these stories explore the navigation of postcolonial spaces through the psyche of individual characters.

 

The first half of this talk will feature the author discussing the novel’s ability to capture the social and political effects of place. The second half of the talk will focus on performance. Presented in Seoul, Hong Kong and now Toronto, JeeMin Kim and Sheung-King’s interdisciplinary art project Displaced Nostalgia   uses multiple media: performance, writing, and installation, to create time spaces where audiences can begin to articulate feelings of displacement.

 

Throughout this talk, the author will invite the audience to respond to writing prompts, an integral part of how his characters communicate with one another in his novels, as well as how JeeMin and Sheung-King engage with audiences during their performances. The event will conclude with a conversation between the audience and the creators of Displaced Nostalgia, JeeMin Kim and Sheung-King, who will be performing at Inter/Access on December 6th, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

 

 

Sheung-King, Aaron Tang’s 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).

 

Sheung-King's books,  Batshit Seven  (2024) and You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked   (2020) will be available for purchase at the event.