Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism

Surveying a contemporary, cutting-edge archive of video works from the Asian diaspora, Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism by Feng-Mei Heberer (NYU Department of Cinema Studies) uncovers the ways that diasporic artists challenge the narrow—and damaging—conceptions of Asian identity pervading mainstream media. Rather than accepting the notion that inclusion requires an uncomplicated set of appearances, the works explored in this volume spotlight a staunch resistance to formulating racial identity as an instantly accessible consumer product.

With Sharon Heijin Lee (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) and Pacharee Sudhinaraset (NYU), Heberer discusses the book’s interventions and how both the content and the making of the book relate to questions of gendered and racialized labor and politics of care.