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• Casey Wei, School of Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University

This panel is interested in conversations about how Art functions as a site for representations of diaspora. While the social sciences offer plenty in terms of historical and theoretical frameworks, how are work in these disciplines interpreted and manifested in artworks by artists who identify from diasporic communities; and vice versa, how do artworks by artists who identify from diasporic communities contribute to the discourses of diaspora studies? This panel is particularly interested in intersectionality of artworks and art practices that operate and live both within and beyond traditional modes of art presentation (i.e., a gallery/museum/institution/cinema).

keywords: diaspora, ethnography, cross-cultural, inter-cultural

session type: panel

Cartographies of Relationality: Mapping Queer Affects and Diasporic Identities in the Art of Chinese Diasporas

• Wai-Chi (Gigi) Wong, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University

My paper examines how queer belongings emerge and circulate within queer Chinese diasporas in the context of diasporic art. It aims to understand the intersection of queerness, photography, diasporic experiences and identities, and digital media, with attention to the ways in which the bodies and narratives of queer Chinese diasporans constitute one another.

Particularly, my paper reimagines a sense of queer Asian-ness (Chen, 2010) through investigating how visual records of queer experience within the Asian diasporic communities are inscribed within the materiality and performativity of diasporic art and diasporic artists’ artmaking practices. In my paper, I attempt to use digital ethnography to inquire about how different transmedia artistic practices of enacting queerness are mediated within the artworks of queer diasporic artists. It looks at how intimate encounters with photographic and multimedia installation art can engender affective sociality and foster solidarity (Gandhi, 2006). In doing so, I explore the ways in which research at the intersection of diasporic art, affect, and queerness (Ponzanesi, 2020) can enable us to mediate and translate how queer Chinese diasporans relate to each other and to their own bodies.

Drawing on affect theory, performance and diasporic studies, my paper conducts a connective ethnographic analysis of queer diasporic artmaking practices highlighting the queer Chinese diasporic bodies by using specific examples from diasporic Chinese artists like Ka-Man Tse (US/Hong Kong), Mengwen Cao (China/US), Andrew Thomas Huang (US) and Lu Yang (China/Japan) as case studies. I ask how the politics of intimacy that shape queer Asian diasporans’ desires, histories and affinities are being conveyed through visual and digital aesthetics.

keywords: diasporic art, queer Chinese diasporas, queer diasporic affect, transcultural, intersectionality

Simranpreet Anand, ਊਚ ਨੀਚ ਬਿਕਾਰ ਸੁਕ੍ਰਿਤ ਸੰਲਗਨ ਸਭ ਸੁਖ ਛਤ੍ਰ ॥ ਮਿਤ੍ਰ ਸਤ੍ਰੁ ਨ ਕਛੂ ਜਾਨੈ ਸਰਬ ਜੀਅ ਸਮਤ ॥ uooch neech bikaar sukirat sa(n)lagan sabh sukh chhatr || mitr satr na kachhoo jaanai sarab jeea samat ||, 2021, Chandoa Sahib, Rihal, Chaur Sahib, plastic marigolds, plastic rose petals, white sheet. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography. Courtesy of the artist.

Thinking Beyond the Frame of Representation

• Simranpreet Kaur Anand, University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design

My artistic work is shown in traditional art viewing settings yet the Punjabi-Sikh diaspora is central to the concept, process, presentation, and discursive events/materials around my work. Instead of producing work that aims to represent my community I choose to delve into culturally specific concepts and histories. In my experience representation presents a reductive narrative of communities that are diverse within themselves. I will discuss my process via the case study of my touring exhibition ਸ਼ੀਸ਼ੇ ‘ਚ ਤਰੇੜ | sheeshe ‘ch thareṛ | a crack in the mirror to exemplify my methodology.

Much of the work in this exhibition was created with community consultations that engaged more than a dozen individuals from the Punjabi communities in Surrey and Vancouver. In creating the work I considered entry points for those who might not be well versed in “artspeak” this includes materials, language, and gestures that someone from my community would recognize. The exhibition showed first in Abbotsford and is currently in Brampton, both have dense Punjabi populations that could access the work. As part of my process I created texts and voice recordings in Punjabi to describe the work; these were not translations of the curatorial texts and were specifically written for a Punjabi audience. At each stop of the tour I have engaged Punjabi radio, television, and reached out to organizations and individuals within the diasporic community. Discursive programs include talks and events that are bi-lingual or cater specifically to community in other ways.

keywords: community, diaspora, culture, artist, representation

Behnaz Fatemi, Abortion, black pen on paper, 70x100cm, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

Beyond Boundaries: Navigating Identity, Politics, and Diaspora

• Behnaz Fatemi, University of Waterloo

As an Iranian woman artist who has experienced the complexities of life under an oppressive regime, my journey to Canada in search of a better life has profoundly shaped my Triangle Series, exploring themes of identity, politics, social justice, and diaspora. Having encountered the limitations and restrictions on freedom of expression in Iran, coupled with the language barrier upon immigrating to Canada, art has become my navigational tool, allowing me to speak and express myself authentically.

Drawing inspiration from Homi K. Bhabha's theoretical frameworks of cultural difference and the Third Space, I strive to construct a hybrid artistic space that synthesizes my Iranian heritage with my encounters in Canada. Through the transformative power of art as an instrument of resistance and political commentary, my Triangle Series metaphorically incorporates the missing history, culture, and geometrical architectural backdrop of my past, translating into a sense of being in diaspora.

This series shifts the focus from contemplation of others within Iran to an introspective exploration of my Canadian experiences, encapsulating the challenges of establishing oneself in a new environment through a distinct angular structure characterized by sharp-edged triangles, symbolizing a protective mechanism for preserving one's sense of self. By utilizing triangles and three-sided pyramidal sculptures as stable and symbolic forms representing safety and shelter, I depict the dichotomy between external control and internal liberation prevalent in oppressed societies, while concealing and safeguarding my thoughts within the pyramids.

keywords: diaspora, freedom of expression, third space, identity, social justice

Bojana Videkanić, Istranzicionisana/Transitioned-Out (video still). 14:45, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

Transitioned-Out: Politics of Sitting In-between

Bojana Videkanić, University of Waterloo

Iztranzicionisana or Transitioned Out is a long-term multidisciplinary artistic project encompassing performance, poetry, drawing, video, and installation work. The series deals first with the history of the breakup of Yugoslavia and its ensuing social chaos (mass murder, refugee crisis, destruction of urban and industrial and rural areas, destruction of social bonds, etc.), connecting it to the post-Yugoslav economic and social ‘transition’ from socialism to forms of wild capitalism and neo-colonialism which were initiated in the 1990s after the breakup of the country.

My own story of becoming a refugee and ending up as an immigrant in Canada is woven into the background of the project. Ultimately, the work connects these 30-year-old historical processes of dispossession and destruction in the Balkans to more recent events of the so-called refugee crisis which saw thousands of migrants fleeing their countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East trying to traverse ex-Yugoslav region (the Balkan Route) to come to the Western Europe. The crux of the work, however, is my own positioning as a diasporic artist who thinks and works in-between—currently situated in the so-called First World, but looking at the neo-colonial devastation happening back in my home country which is situated in the Second-Third World. This in-betweenness of diasporic artistic experience and practice is what my presentation will address, linking my personal work to work of other contemporary artists who are diasporic and addressing similar questions from the space of in-between.

keywords: diasporic performance, neo-colonialism, capitalism, Balkanse