Asia Art Archive in America Leadership Camp: “Other Racisms”

“Other Racisms” is the theme of the fourth iteration of Asia Art Archive in America’s annual Leadership Camp. This four-part closed seminar explores race and ethnicity from and within an Asian context. It addresses racism not only against Asians, but also among and by Asians.
Organized and moderated by Christopher K. Ho and AAA-A’s Furen Dai, Leadership Camp’s intimate format interweaves seminar-type discussions of selected texts with the lived experiences and diverse knowledge of participants. The goal is to use these as guideposts to collectively and actively workshop discourses of race pertaining to, embedded in, and/or emanating from the variegated cultures and terrain of Asia.

Applications for Leadership Camp: “Other Racisms” are due on September 15, 2020. Applications should be sent to fdai@aaa-a.org and include in one PDF file:
- a CV
- a narrative bio of 100-200 words
- an example of a historical or contemporary artwork you think might have characteristics of or exemplify “other racisms,” and a statement of fewer than 500 words explaining your choice.
- an artwork or writing sample of your own (optional)

Your examples and statements will be incorporated into the planning of the four sessions, to be spread over 2020-2021. Selected participants will be notified by Wednesday, September 30.

Prior to the first session on Sunday, October 11, 5-8pm, participants will receive PDFs by email of the readings to be discussed. (Depending on CDC guidelines, the first session will be held either virtually via Zoom or at Asia Art Archive in America, 43 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201).

Initial framing questions include:

What if the “other” in “Other Racisms” is replaced with “our”? What are our racisms?
How might we illuminate ingrained and invisible hierarchies between South, East, and Southeast Asians, and develop a language to address, and possibly redress, these?
How do—and how should—debates about race manifest in visual culture formally, figuratively, symbolically, and materially? Are there positive, negative, and neutral examples?
Where do notions of class and systems of caste intersect with issues of race, and can awareness of these amend curatorial practices, art pedagogies, and organizational structures?

Decades ago, Deng Xiaoping touted “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” What are examples of “racism with Han characteristics”? What aspects are imported from the West, and what are endemic? Is it possible—or useful—to distinguish them?
The political format of the nation state begets a particular and pragmatic definition race. Do other formats—for instance, of universal empires or, contemporarily, of economic coalitions like APEC or ASEAN—bring their own exigencies to the term?
In the US, race relations primarily concern whites and others, with the former being a fixed term and the latter often interchangeable. When and how do we relate to other “others” in the West, and in our respective “home” countries?

Christopher K. Ho (b. Hong Kong) is known for multi-component projects that are both materially specific and conceptually expansive. He is an artist, educator, curator, and critic based in New York and Hong Kong. He has exhibited at, among others, the Bronx Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, UCCA Beijing, Asia Society Hong Kong, the Times Museum, ParaSite, Storm King, the Queens Museum, the Incheon Biennial, and the Busan Bienniale. He is currently editing an anthology with curator Daisy Nam titled Best! Letters from Asian Americans. The New York Times, South China Morning Post, Artforum, Art Asia Pacific, Yishu, Frieze, LEAP, RanDian, Art in America, Modern Painters, Hyperallergic, and Art Review have featured his work. He received his BFA and BS from Cornell University and his MPhil from Columbia University.

New York-based artist Furen Dai (b. Hunan, China) works in video performance, installation and film. Dai received her BA in Russian language and literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University, and her MFA from Tufts University. She has presented her work at the National Art Center, Tokyo; Athens Digital Arts Festival, Greece, amongst others. She has participated in residencies, including International Studio and Curatorial Programs, Art OMI, NARS Foundation, Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art and has received public art commissions from The Art Newspaper (2019) and Rose Kennedy Greenway (2020). She is the recipient of The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Fellowship (2017) and an Emergency Grant from Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2020).