Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts
Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts (Paper Monument, 2021).
In January 2020, shortly before they went into lockdown, artist Christopher K. Ho and curator Daisy Nam realized that they were both independently pursuing projects related to letters: Ho a letter of apology to his former RISD students, whom he felt he had failed as an Asian American mentor, and Nam a program of live readings of existing letters of redress, including ones penned by Sylvia Wynter, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Angela Davis. The pair had met through a leadership group at Asia Art Archive in America focused on the model-minority myth and ways of dismantling it and were now turning to the rich possibilities of the epistolary format. What was originally a conversation over coffee ultimately led to Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts.
Finding a Penfriend in Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts
An open letter to n+1’s new anthology, which explores themes of racial aggression and privilege as well as celebrating solidarity
Dear
Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts,
First, a confession: I am not Asian American. (I was born in London, am Chinese and monoracial, and have lived in both New York and Hong Kong, where I’m currently writing this letter.) Asian American identity politics is, generally, a no-go area for me: it is a delicate space; I do not want to intrude. I think of one particular literary magazine whose submission page includes the lines: ‘Do not send ideas about people and events in Asia unless they convey something about the Asian diaspora that resonates with the Asian American experience.’ Interesting. I wonder who decided that division – not unification – defined experiences of colonialism, oppression, pain and resilience? (Y
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On Thursday, February 25, as part of Printed Matter’s Virtual Art Book Fair, Paper Monument guest editors Daisy Nam and Christopher K. Ho spoke to contributors Mel Chin, Aruna D’Souza, Hyperlink Press, and Patrick Jaojoco about Paper Monument’s new anthology,
Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts.