consider the scallion
December 16, 2020
consider the scallion is a risograph anthology I co-edited with Diane Zhou that features a constellation of reflections on the elusive, intricate nature of the scallion. We have always been fascinated by scallions as cultural artifacts with long roots (haha) stretching across cuisines and experiences. Since many of us have been staying at home and cooking more often as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, scallions have become a precious culinary resource. Growing in our windowsill gardens, they have emerged as a symbol of self-renewal, grounding us with the reassurance that time is indeed passing and that we can still find ways to flourish together.
Each edition of one hundred includes a special bleached paper made from scallions by artist Tim Simonds. Other contributors include Luke Luokun Cheng, Matthew Shen Goodman, Anton Haugen, Christina Yuna Ko, Mo Kong, Vivienne La, Fei Liu, Kevin Lozano, Larissa Pham, Stephanie H. Shih, Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin, Son Kit, Sprechgesang Institute, Jia Sung, Taehee Whang, Rose Wong, Jasmine Yeh, Diane Zhou, and me!
This project was made possible with the generous support of the Brooklyn Arts Council and Asia Art Archive in America.
You can purchase a copy of consider the scallion here.
Five Contortions
November 2–16, 2018
EST (Diane Zhou, Son Kit, and myself) curated Five Contortions, a selection of single channel video works by Dana Davenport, Valery Jung Estabrook, Shu Lea Cheang, Chang Jin Lee, and Jen Liu. Taken together, the works in Five Contortions engage the East Asian femme body as a site upon which visibility, labor, agency, and exploitation shift in dangerous flux. The relentless effort of combating sexual exotification and western expectations of “Asian-ness” troubles the notion of representation as liberatory, even as one struggles against American racism’s negation of Asian individuality, the facelessness of the exploited laborer in global industrial capitalism, and the emptiness of superficially embracing ethnic diversity. The physicality of the body is palpable in all these works, through emphasis, modification, damage, distortion, or even omission, and these unflinching treatments force viewers to confront notions of personhood in the face of dehumanization.
The exhibition is on view November 2 - 16 at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
EST (Eastern Standard Time) is a research collective co-founded by Celine Wong Katzman, Son Kit, and Diane Zhou. EST questions the Western imaginary of Asia as a monolithic entity. While overly-expansive, orientalist definitions make it impossible to ascribe cultural, political, or geographical unity to Asia, EST is interested in its potential as a call to organize across a spectrum of experience. EST is based in New York, NY and Providence, RI.
Outside the Palace of Heavenly Purity
June 7, 2018
Outside the Palace of Heavenly Purity, a group exhibition I co-curated with Diane Zhou and Son Kit, presents narratives that complicate the prevailing idea of globalization as a force emanating directly from privileged Western centers. Artworks by Ho Rui An, Jen Liu, Ingrid Zhuang, Zheng Bo, and O Zhang engaged a variety of speculative models to explore emergent networks of Chinese power within the global landscape as well as local permutations.
The exhibition title refers to the former location of a controversial Starbucks franchise within the Forbidden City. First opened in 2000, the cafe closed in 2007 in the wake of an online campaign spearheaded by TV anchor Rui Chenggang, who argued that its presence was a neo-colonial intrusion of Western “coffee culture” into Chinese cultural heritage.
The exhibition was on view June 7 - August 5 at bitforms gallery in New York.
