Norman Jackson Ford has been an artist and educator since the 1980's. Born in Bermuda and traveling most of his childhood, he has spent a large portion of his adult life outside the US. After leaving art school unfinished he worked as a pizza cook, fern cutter, liquor salesman, photo-lab tech and a nuclear, biological and chemical specialist in the US Army (where he was discharged without being sent to prison). The latter experience forms the basis for Con/deCon, his current project. Involved in numerous group and solo exhibitions internationally, Ford has been working as an artist, commercial photographer, writer and researcher in Hong Kong since 1994, while also teaching photography, multi-media and visual cultural studies at various institutions. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Hong Kong, critiquing cross-cultural theories through a study of Hong Kong (and China's) visual culture and lens-based media. In 2001-02, he curated Re-considered Crossings: Representation Beyond Hybridity, an arts and cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Vienna, and co-edited the book Traversals (Mapbook Publishers, 2001). His most recent work Con/deCon (2003-04) examines the commodification of multi-culturalism and difference through various media.http://www.condecon.net
