Mengwen Cao on Photographing Queer and Trans AAPI Artists
By Mengwen Cao
February 1, 2025
Essays
This past summer, Asian American Arts Alliance partnered with photographer Mengwen Cao to offer free portrait photography for queer and trans AAPI artists in our community with the hope that these images could help embody their spirits and usher in the next phase of their career.
In September, the nine selected artists met at Mai House Studio in Chinatown. We spoke to Mengwen about their process during the shoot and share some of the moments they captured, along with messages each of the artists hope to share with their community.
The Amp: Mengwen, what was your approach in photographing this group of AAPIQT artists? What were you looking to capture?
Mengwen Cao: I wanted to offer a safe container for everyone to shine as their authentic selves. My goal was to create affirming images that reflect their true essence, images that would surprise them in the most delightful way. I wanted them to see themselves in a light they might not have seen often—one that celebrates their beauty, strength, and creativity.
“We’re still here, we’re still choosing to thrive, we’re not a monolith and that’s great!” —Saawan Tiwari
Saawan Tiwari is a costume designer based in New York City. Recent projects include Picher Project, Sitayana, The Gospel According to Heather, and cityscrape. Some other personal favorites include Before the Flood, The Mountaintop, Bruise and Thorn, and Yerma. Saawan also is passionate about theatre education and mentorship, currently working for Roundabout Theatre Company as a Teaching Artist. They love to work on new and daring projects that expand the American theatre cannon, and have always created their best work when they have positive collaborators who push and challenge them.
“We have so much to learn from the resilience of Palestinians and our queer trans siblings who are still trapped under the genocidal campaign of Israel and the US. Stay strong and continue unlearning, learning, engaging in mutual aid, and fighting for humanity. As Fannie Lou Hamer said, ‘Nobody’s free until everybody is free.’” —Onu Kang
Onu Kang’s artistic practice as a musician, producer, and DJ is grounded in experimentation beyond the binary confines of genre. In their live sets, they use layers of live instrumentation, vocals, and samples to build evolving soundscapes that could sound like the score to a dream. In addition to providing a sound sanctuary where our nervous systems can regulate, their hope is to make aware of the unseen in the listener’s emotional landscape using sounds as imagery.
The Amp: How would you describe your process?
Mengwen Cao: My process is collaborative. I treat photo sessions as transformative portals and alchemy sessions. A photoshoot can be a ritual of returning to ourselves. Before the photoshoots, I ask everyone to reflect on their intention for the session and to consider three questions: What are they letting go of? What are they keeping? And what are they calling in?
“I’d like to send a message out to the fellow Asian queer and trans people from Podunk Town, U.S.A.—You are bigger than the people who make you feel small and different and weird. Do whatever you can to make it through. Be out, don’t be out, pass if you want, don’t pass. You will not be here for your whole life, and people just like you are out there in the world, just waiting for you to meet them!” —D Wang Zhao
D Wang is a queer Chinese-Michigander illustrator and designer in Brooklyn. They love masking in public, getting facial piercings, and zooming around the city on their 26” bike. Two truths and a lie: They were once voted “Miss Congeniality” at a highschool theater party; they got stranded in Montréal after their passport was stolen; they’ve never been arrested in the state of New York.
Mengwen Cao: During the session, we usually start with somatic grounding exercises to help them feel present in their bodies. Then, I invite them to visualize their future self and embody that version. My role is to witness them with a loving gaze and guide them to relax into their most radiant, authentic being. I want to encourage them to reveal the parts of themselves they’ve been conditioned to hide—to step into their power and embrace their fullest expression.
“WHEN I AM NOTHING AND NOONE, I AM STILL LOVED AND CAPABLE OF BEING CARED FOR AND LOVED BY MYSELF AND OTHERS. AND YOU ARE TOO!!!” —Jennesis Pham
Jennesis Pham is a visual artist who, out of love and respect for Kȧthe Kollwitz, is compelled to put themselves bare. The physicality of their practice was passed onto them subconsciously through the women in their family and their work, particularly by their mother who is a nail technician of 20+ years. As a person who firmly believes that they are the living dream of their ancestors, they are influenced by erased and unacknowledged Vietnamese history and incorporate those details into their work. Their practice is a reflection of their love towards the human experience and is influenced in their perception of community and how interconnected we all are. They are a very sentimental person creating work that mirrors this phenomena, the tender and delicate complexity of our humanness: both the tragically, harsh beauty and undeniably, warm ugliness.
The Amp: What were some of the conversations you had with the artists? Were there any themes that kept coming up?
Mengwen Cao: Many of the artists shared that they had never had a professional photoshoot before, or that it had been a long time since their last one. A common theme was their discomfort in front of the camera, which reminded me of the colonial history of photography and how the camera’s gaze has often been weaponized as a tool of control. Being seen can feel vulnerable and requires both courage and a safe space to unfold especially for traditionally marginalized communities.
“Even if you can’t imagine a future for yourself, even if you don’t see the possibility to move from youth to middle age, community can support queer and trans Asian Americans in living well.” —Dominique (dom) Chatterjee
Dominique (dom) Chatterjee is a poet, essayist, and editor. They also do layout design. Additionally, they are an aerialist with 10 years of practice and has been studying dance the last couple years.
“I exist because you exist. Thank you for helping to break open space.” —Akane Little
Akane Little’s focus as a dance artist is to find new levels of deeply liberated expression through embodiment. This has been a tough road, existing in a trans body and having grown up in a part of the US that was extremely scarce in trans or Asian representation, community, and presence. They are forever inspired by artists whose expressions, through whatever medium, are un-bounded by norms and break open space for others to live in their full, complex, contradictory, and undomesticated articulations. In their own practice, I search for undomesticated articulations. Currently, their movement research is deeply resourced by Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya, LEIMAY, and the practice of LUDUS.
Mengwen Cao:: After the shoots, many of the artists expressed surprise at how beautiful they looked in the images. They shared things like:
“I see myself more positively now.”
“I can’t believe it! I never like pictures of myself, but I love these.”
“wow I’m hot!”
World peace. Cease fire. —Durra Leung
Durra Leung (柯杜華) is a China-born, NYC-based multilingual writer and composer for musical theatre and opera. His original musical works have been performed at NYC venues including 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, Symphony Space, and many others. He has provided new Cantonese lyrics and translations for a revised version of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (2002 Tony Award for Best Musical), most recently produced by Japan’s Toho Company in Summer 2024. Durra also composes scores for dance pieces and films including “Your Smile” (dir. Haochen Yang) which entered the Cannes Film Festival in 2020. As an arts administrator, Durra has worked for The Play Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, PROTOTYPE Festival, and Dixon Place. Durra is an alum of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program as a composer, a member of BMI Musical Theatre Workshop as a librettist, a two-time Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship Finalist, and a two-time Queens Arts Fund New Work Grant recipient.
“Existence is resistance. Resilience is built in our bones through our intergenerational trauma, and expressing our joy, creativity and pleasure is our birth right.” —Christa Lei
Christa Lei is a writer, speaker, consultant, and advocate for humans trying to survive in systems designed to wear us down. Their work centers on creating spaces for care, connection, and transformation, rooted in their own journey navigating healthcare, trauma, and the messiness of life under capitalism. Their work emphasizes body positivity and neutrality, health at every size, and the need to deconstruct the harmful messages we’ve internalized about our worth and health.
Mengwen Cao: These reactions were deeply affirming for me. They reminded me of the power of photography to not only document but also to heal and transform. By creating images that honor their authenticity, I hope to contribute to a larger narrative of visibility and empowerment for AAPIQT communities.
“I would like to offer that we are able to hold the toughest of unknowns together.” —Anooj Bhandari
Anooj Bhandari’s artistic practice is largely within playwriting and experimental performance. He writes more traditional works, largely for the stage, but as a performer he is interested in clowning, puppetry, and anything that reminds us communally that an act of liveliness is not within the attempt of being entertaining but rather in the act of sharing a movement, a motion, a body, that is trying a thing with the option of failure. He sees his artistic practice breathing within his work as an organizer; If he was to rest on the world’s notions of success and failure, he would have surely given up by now on abolition as my life’s paradigm. Rather, he understands the liveliness of abolition to be the tender intimacies that grow in attempting to live out a world we do not have, everyday.