Call for art, design, text and new media in reflection on Charles Yu's book Interior Chinatown

Dear All,

I am curating a group exhibition for Eastern Connecticut State University Art Gallery in Spring ‘23. The exhibition will complement a NEA Big Read of Charles Yu’s fascinating, insightful, and scathingly humorous novel, “Interior Chinatown.” The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalog.

Please get in touch if your work reflects the novel’s main themes of our society as a role-playing stage, where Asian -Americans (like many American “hyphenatives”) must navigate the challenges of assimilation, performative identities, traditional and familial loyalties, and the world itself as an omnipresent television production studio guided by archaic stereotypes whose consequences are both poignant and hilarious.

Please note, this exhibition is not limited to a specific national identity – all hyphenatives are welcome!

To quote the LA Times book review, Yu paints a picture where “Actors try to land increasingly better roles, bigger roles. Roles that pay better. Roles that will deliver them happiness, move them up the social ladder, and bring them to the doorstep of assimilation. His protagonist, Willis Wu, strives to land the biggest starring role of an Asian-American man can land: Kung Fu Guy. In the process, he reflects on the nature of being Asian American in a black-and-white America.”

Please note, this exhibition is not limited to a specific national identity – all hyphenatives are welcome!

With pre-emptive gratitude for sharing your work with me.

Warm wishes,

Julia Wintner
ECSU Gallery Director

Julia Wintner ( Yulia Tikhonova)
Coordinator of Gallery and Museum Services
Eastern Connecticut State University
Fine Arts Instructional Center, FAIC111
83 Windham Street
Willimantic, CT. 06226
Office: 860 465 4625

Requirements

Please be in touch directly at wintnerj@easternct.edu

We welcome design, texts, music and animation for this exhibition that will be both online and in the gallery in Spring 23.