How selling Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher a piece of video art changed the life of Hong Kong-based Digital Art Fair co-founder Gillian Howard
- When Carrie Fisher visited the gallery at which Gillian Howard worked to buy a piece of video art no one else was looking at, ‘it was a moment that struck me’
- No one was trading digital art at the time, Howard says – the encounter changed her career and led her to starting the Digital Art Fair
As well as launching one of the most successful film franchises of all time, epoch-making space opera “Star Wars” (1977) made stars of several cast members, including actor, novelist, script editor and raconteur Carrie Fisher, who played the pivotal role of Princess Leia.
Gillian Howard, Hong Kong-based co-founder and global fair director of the Digital Art Fair, explains how the film, and an encounter with its star, changed her life.
It started when I was really little, growing up in Hong Kong. I read a lot as a kid. I remember my dad would go to the news-stand every day, get breakfast, get a newspaper and, if it was a good day, he’d let me have a comic book.
When I was a bit older, my uncle, who used to work at Microsoft, got a computer, and I started spending so much time trying to play video games.
I was fascinated with technology and with science fiction. I was not playing with Barbies. Star Wars was really core to me when I was a teenager.
I wanted to be an artist, but my mum and dad told me, “You will starve.” I went to journalism school because I wanted to make my dad proud, but I still worked in a gallery part time.
