Art and Design Commons^™

Invisible Invisibility, Eugina Song

Theses and Dissertations

White America assumes its culture is the default, and Asian culture as foreign and irrelevant. I address Asian invisibility by using canvas structure as a Western framing device of painting, and make this cultural barrier visible by breaking out of the frame. Deriving from Dansaekhwa, I challenge the Western painting structure with materiality.

Tipping Point, Pang Z. Vang

Theses and Dissertations

What happens to a woman at the tipping point under oppression in a patriarchal society? How does she behave? Pulling from the vagina dentata mythologies, and personal and collective experiences of rape culture, I formed a body of work which problematize the stereotypical narrative of victim/perpetrator. As a visual and conceptual exploration, my work explores the themes of desire, agency/non-agency, and violence [as it manifests within and outside of the body]. Utilizing visual and conceptual quotations from film, pornography and sex toys, these works subvert the exoticized stereotype of the Asian woman as sexual plaything.

Patricia Nguyen Interview, Joyce Shoults

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Patricia Nguyen is an artist, educator, and scholar born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans. Her research and performance work examines critical refugee studies, political economy, forced migration, oral histories, inherited trauma, torture, and nation building in the United States and Vietnam. She has published work in Women Studies Quarterly, Harvard Kennedy School's Asian American Policy Review, and The Methuen Drama Anthology of Modern Asian Plays edited by Siyuan Liu and Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Patricia is currently …

Hương Ngô Interview, Jessica Perez

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Hương Ngô is a multidisciplinary artist whose work incorporates performance, sound, text, and installation. She was recently awarded the prestigious Fulbright US Scholar Grant in Vietnam to continue a project (begun at the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer in France) that traces the colonial history of surveillance in Vietnam and the anti-colonial strategies of resistance vis-à-vis the activities of female organizers and liaisons. The project, To Name It Is To See It, fleshes out identity and visibility as territories that both colonizer and colonized manipulate to achieve personal agency or state sovereignty. She was born in Hong Kong and is currently …

Wesley Sun Interview, Chad Novotny

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: BA, 2004, Stetson University, DeLand, Florida; M.Div, 2008, The University of Chicago. Both Wesley Sun and his brother (Brad Sun) were born and raised in Orlando, Florida, by their parents who are Chinese immigrants from Malaysia. Wesley serves as the Director of Field Education and Community Engagement at the University of Chicago Divinity School and is a volunteer chaplain at Cook County Jail. He also does creative writing for graphic novels that both he and his brother have collaborated on. His completed graphic novels include: Chinatown, Apocalypse Man, and Monkey Fist. Eisegesis: Kings + Queens is expected to be …

Raeleen Kao Interview, Beena Patel

Asian American Art Oral History Project

BIO: Raeleen Kao is a drawer, printmaker, and amateur competitive eater aka glutton residing in Chicago with a Charles Brand etching press, a red tabby, and forty plants.

Her prints and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country most notably at the International Museum of Surgical Science, the Monmouth Museum of Art, Bert Green Fine Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, Tory Folliard Gallery, Firecat Projects, and Normal Editions Workshop. Her work has been represented at SELECT Fair New York, the Editions and Artist Books Fair in New York, the Cleveland Fine Print Fair, the …

Michio Iwao Interview, Grace Johnson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Michio Iwao is one of four sons of the parents Kotama and Tomonosuke Iwao. He is known as an Asian American craftsperson that was born on July 12, 1922 in Suisun City, California. During World War II Michio and his family were relocated and held at the Gila River Internment Camp also known as Trulock. This stay lasted from 1942 to 1945 under the War Relocation Authority. This Japanese Internment camp inspired Iwao to spend his idle time learning how to make bird pins. This was the start of Iwao becoming a craftsperson.

Jun-Jun Sta.Ana Interview, Jackson Hughlett

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Jun-Jun Sta.Ana is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist born on September 19, 1963 to Remigio Benavidez Sta.Ana and Emma Cecilio Catral in Manila, Philippines. He moved to the United States at the age of 24, shortly after finishing a degree in Dentistry. He started his art career late just before he was turning 40- having a solo show of digital works using appropriated images from free porn sites which he deconstructed and embellished with images and symbols culled from Filipino talismans. His practice has become multi-disciplinary, and while still utilizing found images and materials, he also employs the technique of …

Kristine Aono Interview, Maureen Vela

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Kristine Aono is a sculptor and installation artist. She has a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In addition, she has done residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Arts.

She has received numerous grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts (Visual Artist/Public Project Grant), the Maryland State Arts Council, the Painted Bride, the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, and the Prince George’s Arts Council. Kristine Aono has served on the Board of the Washington Project for the Arts, …

Kevin J. Miyazaki Interview, Anthony Santoro

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Kevin J. Miyazaki is an artist and photographer born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Japanese American parents originally from Hawai‘i and Washington state. His artwork often focuses on issues of ethnicity, family history and memory. The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is of particular interest to Miyazaki, whose father spent time at both Tule Lake and Heart Mountain camps. His work has been exhibited in a variety of locations, including The Center for Photography at Woodstock (New York), The Haggerty Museum of Art (Milwaukee) The Rayko Photo Center (San Francisco) and Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle). …