Art and Design Commons^™

Thomas Kong Interview, Jon Lovisetto

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist bio: Thomas Kong is an artist working in collage and assemblage, using advertising, packaging and other surplus material from his convenience store, Kim's Corner Food, located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Kim's Corner Food features an evolving installation of Kong's work, and is open to customers and visitors 7 days a week from 8AM - 8PM at 1371 W. Estes Ave, Chicago, IL 60626.

The Back Room, an experimental project space in the store's former stock room, operated from October 2015 – March 2019, and has now closed. Bio from: https://thomaskong.biz/

Kathy Liao, Lei Chen

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Biography: Kathy Liao currently resides in Kansas City, MO, and teaches at Missouri Western State University as the Director of the Painting and Printmaking Studio Art Program. Drawing inspirations from her diverse cultural background and personal history, Kathy Liao mixed media work is about the intimate yet universal concept of relationships. Liao received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Washington, Seattle. Liao is a recipient of various awards including the StudiosINC Studio Residency Program, Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency, Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, Artist Grants from Anderson Ranch Arts …

Sky Cubacub Interview, Spencer Nieto

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Rebirth Garments are designed and made by hand by Sky Cubacub. Sky is a non-binary queer and disabled Filipinx human from Chicago, IL with life long anxiety and panic disorders. Sky first dreamed of this collection while in high school and couldn’t find a place where they could buy a chest binder as a person who was under 18, and who didn't have access to a credit card to buy one online. Sky is especially interested in Rebirth Garments being accessible to queer and disabled youth and is working on creating a program for making free/reduced priced garments …

Kai Duc Luong Interview, Stuart Hutson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio Born in 1975 in Phnom-Penh, KAI-DUC LUONG fled the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime from Cambodia to Vietnam to France, where his family settled in Paris, in 1978. KAI-DUC operates between Chicago and Paris. His artistic projects include video (art / doc / film), photography, and mixed media installations. His unconventional path as a self-taught outsider artist, trained in digital communication & systems engineering, gives him a unique perspective, at times questioning subject matters through the understanding of transmission and systems (e.g. the primary emotions, the five senses, the stages of grief, the art industry). His works have been …

Heather C. Lou Interview, Katie O’Reilly

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: heather c. lou, m.ed. (she/her/hers) is an angry gemini earth dragon, multiracial, asian, queer, cisgender, disabled, survivor/surviving, depressed, and anxious womxn of color artist based in st. paul, minnesota. her mixed media pieces include watercolor, acrylic, gold paint pen, oil pastel, radical love, & hope. each piece comments on the intersections of her racial, gender, ability, & sexual identities, as they continue to shift and develop in complexity each day. her art is a form of healing, transformation, and liberation, rooted in womxnism and gender equity through a racialized borderland lens. heather works in education as an administrator. …

Chamindika Wanduragala Interview, Vincent To

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Chamindika Wanduragala is a Sri Lankan American visual artist, cook, DJ ( DJ Chamun), puppeteer and stop motion animation filmmaker based in Minneapolis. Her work deals with personal experience through mythic stories. She is also the founder and Director of Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop, which supports Native/POC in developing creative and technical skills in contemporary puppetry.

Bio from: http://chamindika.com/index.html

Tori Hong Interview, Eliza Lemus

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: Tori Hong is a self-taught visual artist exploring homelands and homecomings. In order to create meaning out of the often ambiguous, disruptive, and generative spaces they occupy, Hong creates narrative-driven illustrations, portraits, and zines. The people Hong centers in their work are LGBTQ Asian Americans and people with marginalized identities. Hong is based in Minneapolis, MN.

Kelvin Burzon Interview, Maya Boustany

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Kelvin Burzon is a Filipino-American artist whose work explores intersections of sexuality, race, gender and religion. He was born on March 26, 1989, in Bataan, Philippines. As a child growing up in a Filipino culture, Burzon’s initial ambition was to become a Catholic Priest. “I have always been interested in the religion’s role in culture and familial relationships and have been drawn to the religion’s traditions, imagery, theatricality, and its psychological vestige.” His work is inspired by cerebral influences growing up in and around the church. “My cultural and familial identity, my memories as a child, cannot be separated from …

Jennifer Tshab Her, Allison Bautista

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio: My work demonstrates and complicates the politics of displacement through my experience as a second-generation Hmong-American woman. As a nation-less ethnic minority from Southeast Asia, I fear cultural extinction. I create work that reveals the diaspora of the Hmong, questioning the roles of site and place, and instead looking in-between. My work engages political and cultural space through multidisciplinary practices such as embroidery, installation, and social practice. I use color as a dialogue–a tool for bringing attention to space, claiming space and recognizing how spaces are claimed. I interpret the question of ownership, whether land or body, through …