Bio Ho Tam was born in Hong Kong and educated in Toronto, Canada. He worked in advertising firms and psychiatric facilities before turning to art. He works in a diverse mix of disciplines including painting, video, print and public art and has exhibited in Toronto, New York, Montreal, San Francisco and Winnipeg. Tam currently lives in New York City and is working on a new project about an AIDS activist and artist. Works Hair Cuts 1999 Ho Tam Compiled with images of storefronts of beauty parlors and barber shops from Chinatown and the Lower East Side on New York City, the video takes the viewer into the almost mythical hair culture of the local community. Accompanied by a soundtrack of "Heart Sutra" chanting from a Buddhist monastery, "Hair Cuts" explores the interior of human hearts through the architectural mapping of sites seen. 99 Men 1998 Ho Tam 99 pictures of men. What do they have in common? Let me give you a hint. These are clippings from some Chinese-American newspapers -- salesmen, insurance agents, real estate brokers. All with glasses, ties and suits. Along with some old Chinese radio music. A joke? A stereotype? a fetish? You tell me. It’s anybody’s game. What you see is what you get. Dear Sis 1998 Ho Tam “Dear Sis, I am sitting on the subway and all of a sudden, I have this urge to write to you...”, here begins an apology letter written from one sister to another. Starting with the issue of sibling rivalry, the video is a simple and straightforward examination of the connection and the distinction between one person and the next in the world we live in -- talking us further into the greater subject of humanity. La Salle Primary 1998 Ho Tam In February, 1998, the artist traveled back to Hong Kong to revisit his elementary school, La Salle Primary. Time has changed but there are still the same Chinese Catholic boys in school uniforms. Season of the Boys 1997 Ho Tam Shot at the Chinatown Basketball Tournament in New York City, August, 1997, Season of the Boys is about the myth of a “boy season” that all men have been waiting for, which comes just once and only for a brief moment. Mixing the unlikely subjects of athletics, voyeuristic desire and poetic expression, Season of the Boys explores how the culture of youth and beauty is constructed and influences us from the intimate viewpoint of the videomaker.