inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE
Art Exhibit, Public Lecture & Workshop on Asian America
9/10 - 10/10, 2021, opening 6-8 pm, Friday, 9/10
- We ask you to wear a mask while attending all events, the opening reception will be at the courtyard-
Curated by Boram Jeong, Boyung Lee, Sammy Lee, and Chad Shomura
We are delighted to announce inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE, a public humanities project on Asian America. The project consists of an art exhibition, artist talks, public lectures, and community-building workshops. inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE will run from September 10 to October 10, 2021 at RedLine Contemporary Art Center.
The theme inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE captures the struggles of Asians and Asian Americans to survive and thrive in the face of strong anti-Asian sentiment. Asians and Asian Americans are alternately made invisible and hypervisible through stereotypes such as “model minorities,” “honorary whites,”“perpetual foreigners,” and “enemy aliens.” Yet, Asian America is remarkably complex due to cultural diversity, various migration routes, and different socioeconomic circumstances.
inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE will showcase Asian and Asian American artists, scholars, performers, and community organizers from different ethnic, gender, and geographic backgrounds.
inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE will feature works by:
Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Yikui (Coy) Gu, Sammy Seung-min Lee, Renluka Maharaj, Suchitra Mattai, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, Tsogo Mijid, Yong Soon Min, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Scott Tsuchitani, Joo Yeon Woo
At the opening on September 10, Kshitija Saturdekar and James Nguyen will be performing two dynamic solos exploring the spectrum of Asian/Asian-American empowerment within the nuances of visibility and invisibility.
Very Proper Table Setting project, an ongoing project series by the co-curator and artist Sammy Lee, will also be featured at the opening.
Very Proper Table Settings, a series of experiments centered around setting tables, asks questions to participants about a sense of home and immigration through the caring activity of setting tables. Visitors will be asked to arrange imaginary meals for a loved one using Lee’s Korean dinnerware. When participants conceive a specific dish from their own culture and are unable to find a suitable serving vessel, they experience feelings common amongst newly settled immigrants, such as inadequacy to fit into the mainstream culture or inability to represent their own customs properly. - sponsored by DOIRA (Denver Office of Immigrant & Refugee Affairs)
Please contact the curatorial committee with any questions at invisible.hypervisible@gmail.com
hashtags:#invisible_hypervisible #asianamericanart #AAPI #AsianAmerican #stopaapihate #redlinedenver
To place the exhibition within social, cultural, and political context, inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE will include public lectures.
PUBLIC LECTURES
Artists’ talk I - Scott Tsuchitani(visiting artist), Sammy Lee
Saturday, September 11th, 11:00 AM at RedLine and on Zoom
The Island, film screening
Saturday, September 11th, 12:00 PM, following artists’ talk
The Island by Tuan Andrew Nguyễn, 42 min
The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. My family and I were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991, when it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics. The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth—having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam—finds a United Nations scientist who has washed ashore after the world’s last nuclear battle. By weaving together footage from Bidong’s past with a narrative set in its future, I question the individual’s relationship to history, trauma, nationhood, and displacement.
Artists’ talk II (nationally based artists)- Yikui (Coy) Gu, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, Yong Soon Min
Thursday, September 23, 5 - 6:30 PM on Zoom
In addition to educating the public, inVISIBLE | hyperVISIBLE aims to build community. It will offer workshops by partnering with Denver-based Community Organizing for Radical Empathy (CORE).
COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS
CORE workshop: Courageous Conversation
Sunday, September 19th, 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM, at RedLine
Facilitated by Joie Ha, CORE
Discover ways to engage in difficult conversations about racism with family, friends, and loved ones. Explore proven techniques to converse with your network, create an action plan, prepare for a conversation, and role play in breakout sessions.
As the daughter of refugees, Joie Ha (she/her/hers) has always endeavored to do more good for more people. She has been an activist and organizer for minority communities in Colorado for over 10 years. Joie often engages in community projects with focus on anti-racist work, civic engagement, and the intersection of art and activism. She serves the community in several capacities such as the Chair for the Denver Asian American Pacific Islander Commission, and a board member for Colorado Asian Pacific United.
Installation-“Inner Chamber Talk: Objects from Home”
Roundtable: Sunday, September 19th, 2:45 pm (following CORE workshop), at RedLine
Facilitated by Boram Jeong
"Inner Chamber" is a pop-up installation, made up of objects that migrants from Asia brought from home. The installation creates an intimate space in the corner of the exhibit room, in reminiscence of inner chambers (閨房,內房 or 내방) that provided women in premodern China and Korea with a place of literary and subversive imagination.
The roundtable discussion thematizes our affective attachments to the 'objects from home' that have traveled across time and space. Participants are welcome to bring objects to the event, or submit a photo of the object along with a short story/description via email (boram.jeong@ucdenver.edu) by Saturday, September 18th.
Workshop: AAPI Resilience Building
Saturday, September 25th, 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM, at RedLine
Facilitated by ARC (Asian Roundtable of Colorado)
A workshop/training on Anti-Asian hate crimes and available resources for Colorado AAPI leaders with native Asian language and outreach capabilities. These leaders would in turn commit to distribute resources and educate their AAPI community members to build individual strength and organizational resilience against Asian Hate. To register, please contact coAsianccc@gmail.com.
Facilitated by Stella Yu, George Kuwamura, Peter Lee, Abbie Kozik and Samina Hamidi of the ARC (Asian Roundtable of Colorado). This team has a combined community building experience of over 120 years. ARC successfully outreached to the AAPI communities throughout Colorado during the 2020 Census by utilizing a State of Colorado grant and leveraging the cultural and native language expertise of Community Connectors and organization leaders.
Panel talk: Asian American Women, Race, Gender and Religion
Sunday, October 10th, 11:00 AM
Drs. Tammy Ho, Nami Kim, Christine Pae, moderated by Boyung Lee at RedLine
This panel by Asian American feminist scholars addresses the status of Asians in America from critical feminist perspectives focusing on lived experiences of Asian American women. Three prominent Asian American feminist scholars of religion and theology interrogate the increasing Anti Asian racism in historical contexts, analyze the sexualized racism and racialized sexism that Asian American women have experienced and roles that religion played in the formation of racial identity in America. They explore ways to advance racial justice through solidarity building among different racial/ethnic communities.
Dr. Tammy Ho is Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at University of California, Riverside.
Dr. Nami Kim is Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair of the Dept. of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. K. Christine Pae is Associate professor of religion and women & gender studies, and the chair of Religion Department at the Denison University in Ohio.
Dr. Boyung Lee is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at the Iliff School of Theology, and Co-dean of the University of Denver and Iliff’s Joint Doctoral Program in the Study of Religion.
RedLine would like to thank the President's Fund for the Humanities (University of Colorado), Asian American Student Services (CU Denver), Iliff School of Theology, Asian Roundtable of Colorado, Department of Philosophy (CU Denver), The Griggs-Yu Fund
