Sheida Soleimani, Maryam, 2017, archival pigment print on cotton, polyester filling, dimensions variable, image in courtesy of the artist
Curated by Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin
January 26 - February 23
Opening reception January 26, 6-8 pm
Myth, Memory, Migration: Stories from the Asian Diaspora addresses the interconnections between race, sexuality, class, and debility in relation to cultural myths, migration, and memory. In dismantling the notion of a singular Asian identity, the artists from West, Central, South, Southeast, and East Asian diaspora highlight the complexity in their layered and transnational identities. They investigate the ways in which interweaving histories and ongoing legacies such as colonialism, US militarism, anti-blackness, and Islamophobia construct our understanding of and positionality to Asian identity through archiving, translating, and excavating myths, oral stories, and family lineages.
Featuring: Amna Asghar, Dana Davenport, Umber Majeed, Tammy Nguyen, Ke Peng, Sahana Ramakrishnan, Sheida Soleimani
Amna Asghar speaks on the construction and translation of disparate references, cultures, geographies, and generations from Pakistan and America; Dana Davenport addresses the complexity of interminority racism within her own community and institutions from her experiences as a Black Korean American; Umber Majeed’s practice attempts to unpack the temporalities within South Asia as site, familial archival material, popular culture, and modern national state narratives; Tammy Nguyen interrogates natural sciences and non-human forms to explore racial intimacies and US military involvement in the Pacific Rim; Ke Peng documents the feeling of alienation and disorientation from urbanization and immigration by taking a journey into an imagined childhood in China, Hunan, where she was born and Shenzhen, a modern city where her family relocates to; Sahana Ramakrishan explores myths and religion from Buddhist and Hindu tales to speak upon the magic of childhood and the power dynamics of sexuality, race, and violence; Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American artist and a daughter of political refugees, making work to highlight her critical perspective on the historical and contemporary socio-political occurrences in Iran.
Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin (b. 1993) explores the interconnections between sexuality, gender, and transgression; history, memory, and cultural myths; and social hierarchy in relationship to coloniality. Shin uses Taoist indigenous knowledge to explore the porousness of bodily boundaries and the ceaseless movement of living processes, like fermentation, echoing the history of colonialism. Shin is interested in entangling the history of conquest and the literal digestion of materials - herbs, medicine, and food - into a new system of relations that emerge from a complicated history of entanglement.
Shin has exhibited at Trestle Gallery, Local Project, Abrons Arts Center, Miranda Kuo Gallery, and many others. Shin exhibited her first solo show at the AC Institute. Shin works and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Opening reception | Friday, January 26, 7:00 PM
Performance by exhibiting artist, Dana Davenport
Thursday, February 1, 6:30-8:30 PM
Exhibiting artist panel
Thursday, February 15 | 6:30-8:30 PM
Roundtable discussion with community organizers and activists
Roundtable Panelists:
Mieko Gavia, independent writer
Monica Mohapatra, board member of South Asian Diaspora Artist Collective
Mark Tseng-Putterman, writer and PhD student, Brown University Department of American Studies
Ambika Trasi, artist, board member of South Asian Women's Creative Collective, curatorial assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Betty Yu, multi-media artist, educator and co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade
Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin is the winner of the 7th Annual Emerging Curator Open Call.
Bottom row credit: Tiffany Jaeyeon Shin and Mark Edwards