Kimsooja's moving performance-art piece on begging to appear at Vancouver Art Gallery's FUSE

Last week we told you about the rare chance you'll have at Friday night's FUSE event at the VAG to play Lego with Douglas Coupland (or at least craft multicoloured towers that he'll use in his exhibit there next May).

But another draw that night has a very different, thought-provoking tone to it: artist Kimsooja, whose meditative Kimsooja Unfolding show is currently up at the gallery, will be mounting the Canadian premiere of her performance-art piece Beggar Woman-Conditions of Anonymity.

For the VAG event, a multidisciplinary art party that takes place from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. around the gallery, she's set the work on a group of people who will sit in meditative yet sculptural begging positions amid the masses of partygoers. The work had its premiere in New York City's Times Square in 2005, and when you see the participants so vulnerable amid the hub of the gallery, just try to imagine them on the sidewalks there.

 In the video here, you can watch the Korean-born, New York- and Paris-based artist talk about the genesis of the project, and see footage of her performing the first solo version of the piece, where she takes the position amid crowds on streets around the world-from Cairo to Lagos-her arm outstretched for alms. It becomes a startling, silent statement on universal need.