Kagan Goh
Kagan Goh was born in 1969 in Singapore. He has lived in Penang and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and travelled extensively throughout South East Asia. He studied in England for two years and finally set down roots in Canada where he studied General Arts at the University of British Columbia. Growing bored of academia and in a fit of insanity he moved to the small fishing village of Cowhead, Newfoundland (population 700). It was there where he endured a sub zero winter, hibernating for eight months and educating himself in film to keep his sanity. He applied to Ryerson's Photographic Arts Film Studies program in 1989 and was put on a waiting list. He hitchhiked his way to Toronto in hopes of securing an interview. The bureaucratic administration rejected his request for an interview, unsympathetic with his plight. That is until they realized he had come all the way from "What? Where? Cowhead Newfoundland, man we have to get you in!" In his third year, he made the film The Haj (translation: an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca). Shot on the railway tracks of Toronto on a shoe string budget, this 45 minute film foregoes the preoccupation with slick technological sophistication. Believing that if the story is compelling and the content strong, the audience will overlook the fact that the film was shot on four different formats: 16 mm film, video 8, super 8, and 3/4" video. The Haj was screened in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Video In Studios in April of 1994. After completing The Haj he took two years off from Ryerson and embarked on his own personal Haj to Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, England and Prague. He returned to Toronto in the fall of 1994 to complete his studies. Mind Fuck is his thesis project. He is currently developing "Mind Fuck" as a feature film.
Videos include:
The Haj 1992, Prodigal Song of the Open Road 1993, Mind Fuck 1995.
Artist Code: 475
Videography
1995, 25:19 minutes, colour, English