Los Angeles–based interdisciplinary artists Vinhay Keo and Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai explore South/East Asian queer diasporas and the complexities of history, identity, and belonging. Join us as they perform and screen excerpts from their recent work followed by a conversation with independent curator Aziz Sohail; USC Dornsife professor Nayan Shah; and Alexis Bard Johnson, curator at the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.
In conjunction with the event, the USC Libraries will present an exhibition of materials from the ONE Archives and Satrang, a community organization that has supported South Asian LGBTQ communities in Southern California since 1997. Celebrating 25 years of Satrang and looking toward its future, work from the organization and Keo and Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai will be on display at the ONE Archives and the USC Pacific Asia Museum, showing diverse perspectives from artists, scholars, students, archivists, and community members on queering South/east Asian histories and experiences.
RSVP for the event here.
Bios:
The performative lectures and site-specific installations of Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai address the structures of Eurocentric masculine power in space and architecture and take apart the physical and structural tools of the Western academic. Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai was a recipient of the SOMA Summer Award in Mexico City in 2016 and the emi kuriyama spirit award in 2020.
Alexis Bard Johnson is curator at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. She most recently curated Six (Linear) Feet and the online exhibition Safer at Home. She is currently working on Sexual Science and the Imagi-nation, one of the exhibitions in the Getty Foundation’s 2024 Pacific Standard Time initiative, and Queer Black California: Art and Politics with the California African American Museum. Johnson earned her PhD in art history with a minor in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies from Stanford University. Before joining ONE Archives, Johnson held positions at the Princeton Art Museum, the Whitney Museum, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Vinhay Keo is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose photography, video, installation, performance, sculpture, and writing interrogate the effects of intergenerational trauma from the Vietnam War, Khmer Rouge genocide, French colonialism in Indochina, and queer temporality. He is a recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship, Louisville Visual Art’s Rising Star Award, and a Great Meadows Foundation grant.
Nayan Shah is a professor of American studies and ethnicity and history at USC. He is the author of Contagious Divides (2001) and Stranger Intimacy (2012), and a recipient of fellowships and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, von Humboldt Foundation, and Freeman Foundation.
Aziz Sohail is an art curator, writer, and researcher who promotes under-researched histories and builds interdisciplinary connections between art, history, archive, fiction, theory, and biography. He has been a curator-in-residence at the New Art Gallery Walsall and the Nepal Picture Library, and was part of Curatorial Intensive South Asia 2018 at Khoj in New Delhi and the Young Curators Academy at Herbstsalon 2019 in Berlin.
This event is presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Co-sponsored by Asian Pacific American Student Services and ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.
Covid Protocols:
To enter the USC campus, all guests age 12 and older must show proof of full vaccination (either a physical CDC-issued vaccine card or a digital copy available from the State of California here). As an alternative, guests may show a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken in the past 72 hours. Photo ID required. All persons accessing campus must also complete Trojan Check (trojancheck.usc.edu), USC’s daily wellness assessment, on the day of their visit. Medical grade masks (surgical masks, N95, KN95, or KF94) are required for all attendees, vaccinated or unvaccinated, at indoor events.
