TJ Shin De-Sanitizes Natural History
Arranged in a mycelial pattern on a low floor plinth, a smoldering network of incense made from mugwort transfected with Shin’s DNA rests on a chalk-white bed of diatomaceous earth. Recalling rituals of cremation by merging their own genetic material with the anti-malarial weed, Shin binds themself to this storied plant as it burns slowly against a snowy substrate of insecticidal fossil dust. In doing so, the artist becomes a fumigatory agent, or a weapon of sanitizing purity and cleanliness.
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Arranged in a mycelial pattern on a low floor plinth, a smoldering network of incense made from mugwort transfected with Shin’s DNA rests on a chalk-white bed of diatomaceous earth. Recalling rituals of cremation by merging their own genetic material with the anti-malarial weed, Shin binds themself to this storied plant as it burns slowly against a snowy substrate of insecticidal fossil dust. In doing so, the artist becomes a fumigatory agent, or a weapon of sanitizing purity and cleanliness.
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april 19, 2023
review
the amp
review
the amp
Shahzia Sikander on Using Art to Inspire Possibilities
“Society’s perception of the tensions between women and power and how erasure is enacted by the social forces that shape women’s lives constructs what femininity means to me. The feminine as the monstrous, the abject, the fecund, the immense, and the vulnerable have permeated literary history. Intimacy, selfhood, valor, resistance, and femininity’s intersections with race and war are indicators of the fear that lurks when boundaries melt.” -Shahzia Sikander
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“Society’s perception of the tensions between women and power and how erasure is enacted by the social forces that shape women’s lives constructs what femininity means to me. The feminine as the monstrous, the abject, the fecund, the immense, and the vulnerable have permeated literary history. Intimacy, selfhood, valor, resistance, and femininity’s intersections with race and war are indicators of the fear that lurks when boundaries melt.” -Shahzia Sikander
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march 21, 2023
interview the amp
interview the amp
Tomie Arai and Diane Wong on Collecting AAPI Stories
“How do we build memorials and public spaces to process our collective grief and loss?”
-Tomie Arai
“What’s beautiful about memory work is that it can shape-shift with time.”
-Diane Wong
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“How do we build memorials and public spaces to process our collective grief and loss?”
-Tomie Arai
“What’s beautiful about memory work is that it can shape-shift with time.”
-Diane Wong
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march 6, 2023
interview the amp
interview the amp
CFGNY on Using Fashion to Expand Asian Identity
Depending on when and who you ask, the fashion label-cum-art collective CFGNY can stand for either “Concept Foreign Garments New York” or “Cute Fucking Gay New York.” These interchangable definitions both summarize the group perfectly in their own way, one in meaning and one spirit, and together are demonstrative of a deep-seated dedication to the pluralistic and plastic.
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Depending on when and who you ask, the fashion label-cum-art collective CFGNY can stand for either “Concept Foreign Garments New York” or “Cute Fucking Gay New York.” These interchangable definitions both summarize the group perfectly in their own way, one in meaning and one spirit, and together are demonstrative of a deep-seated dedication to the pluralistic and plastic.
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february 10, 2023
interview the amp
interview the amp
“This is Home” Captures the Everyday Beauty of Community
What makes a group of people a community? When does a place become a home? Reigning in the year of the water rabbit, the current exhibition at Flushing Town Hall features the work of three photographers capturing NYC’s AAPI enclaves. Titled “This is Home,” the show explores the indelible sense of belonging, pride, and self-assuredness present in these neighborhoods.
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What makes a group of people a community? When does a place become a home? Reigning in the year of the water rabbit, the current exhibition at Flushing Town Hall features the work of three photographers capturing NYC’s AAPI enclaves. Titled “This is Home,” the show explores the indelible sense of belonging, pride, and self-assuredness present in these neighborhoods.
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january 24, 2023
review
the amp
review
the amp
Searching Beyond the Immediately Observable: Choe U-Ram at MMCA
We often think about technological progress within linear terms, like an arrow that only moves forward from its starting point. We tend to assume technology is a positive thing; that this ceaseless pursuit into the unknown is synonymous with advancement. Little Ark is a directionless vessel, heading nowhere discernable and to no foreseeable end, calling to question whether this assumption about progress is really true.
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We often think about technological progress within linear terms, like an arrow that only moves forward from its starting point. We tend to assume technology is a positive thing; that this ceaseless pursuit into the unknown is synonymous with advancement. Little Ark is a directionless vessel, heading nowhere discernable and to no foreseeable end, calling to question whether this assumption about progress is really true.
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december 21, 2022
essay
hyundai artlab
essay
hyundai artlab
Kyung-Me on Depicting the Labyrinth of the Psyche
Meticulously detailed, each of the eight ink drawings depict surreal scenes that attempt to uncover a spiraling psychology. There is a maddening, inescapable symmetry to these works. Kyung-Me’s beautiful labyrinth of mirrors is a world that is both collapsing in on itself and opening wide like a maw, consuming its viewers.
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Meticulously detailed, each of the eight ink drawings depict surreal scenes that attempt to uncover a spiraling psychology. There is a maddening, inescapable symmetry to these works. Kyung-Me’s beautiful labyrinth of mirrors is a world that is both collapsing in on itself and opening wide like a maw, consuming its viewers.
Read more
december 13, 2022
interview the amp
interview the amp
Lily & Honglei on Using Old Stories to Heal New Wounds
“We found a lot of similarities between Asian immigrants’ life and ancient Chinese folk stories. Those hundred-year-old stories can be easily related to people suffering today. We place the ancient characters in today’s American society to reflect the isolation, family separation, and hard conditions in new immigrants’ life.”
-Honglei
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“We found a lot of similarities between Asian immigrants’ life and ancient Chinese folk stories. Those hundred-year-old stories can be easily related to people suffering today. We place the ancient characters in today’s American society to reflect the isolation, family separation, and hard conditions in new immigrants’ life.”
-Honglei
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december 2, 2022
interview the amp
interview the amp
Leah Thomas is Building a Generation of Intersectional Environmentalists
According to Thomas, while environmental justice establishes the policies and the data, intersectional environmentalism establishes the culture and framework needed to tackle the climate crisis. “Through environmental justice research, we’ve been able to see how racism and income are often compounding factors and big determinants as to whether or not, for example, people will live with toxic waste in their neighbourhood,” Thomas explains.
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According to Thomas, while environmental justice establishes the policies and the data, intersectional environmentalism establishes the culture and framework needed to tackle the climate crisis. “Through environmental justice research, we’ve been able to see how racism and income are often compounding factors and big determinants as to whether or not, for example, people will live with toxic waste in their neighbourhood,” Thomas explains.
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october 31, 2022
profile
gal-dem
profile
gal-dem
How Filipino American artist Carlos Villa poignantly visualised Asian American invisibility
In 1958, 22-year-old Carlos Villa (1936-2013) received a troubling answer to a pressing question. As a young Filipino American student at the San Francisco Art Institute, Villa was curious to know about the history of Filipino American art. But when he asked his professor, Walt Kuhlman, he was bluntly told, “There is no Filipino American art history.” By Villa’s telling, this conversation catalysed a lifelong dedication to exploring and expressing his identity through his work as an artist, activist and educator.
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In 1958, 22-year-old Carlos Villa (1936-2013) received a troubling answer to a pressing question. As a young Filipino American student at the San Francisco Art Institute, Villa was curious to know about the history of Filipino American art. But when he asked his professor, Walt Kuhlman, he was bluntly told, “There is no Filipino American art history.” By Villa’s telling, this conversation catalysed a lifelong dedication to exploring and expressing his identity through his work as an artist, activist and educator.
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may 3, 2022
review
the art newspaper
review
the art newspaper
Behind Dansaekhwa’s Rapid Rise into a Blue-Chip Movement
Translating to “Korean monochrome painting” in English, Dansaekhwa developed its universe of austere abstraction of its own accord, inspired by the specific dispossessing trauma of the Korean War and its wake. “We have come to a point where it is no longer possible to represent anything,” Park Seo-bo said upon the debut of his essential “Ecriture” works in 1973.
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Translating to “Korean monochrome painting” in English, Dansaekhwa developed its universe of austere abstraction of its own accord, inspired by the specific dispossessing trauma of the Korean War and its wake. “We have come to a point where it is no longer possible to represent anything,” Park Seo-bo said upon the debut of his essential “Ecriture” works in 1973.
Read more
october 25, 2021
essay
artsy
essay
artsy
A Modern American Roadtrip
Coming from the farmlands of South Korea, [my grandparents] rooted themselves in what they knew and understood best—the soil, trees, mountains, and rivers. On rare leisurely weekends, all six of them went camping at Wisconsin Dells State Park a few hours away. Laughing around a campfire, they piled kimchi onto their hotdogs and played the Korean version of rock, paper, scissors. Years later, when they moved to California, they visited National Parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Arches, in awe of their impossible grandeur.
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Coming from the farmlands of South Korea, [my grandparents] rooted themselves in what they knew and understood best—the soil, trees, mountains, and rivers. On rare leisurely weekends, all six of them went camping at Wisconsin Dells State Park a few hours away. Laughing around a campfire, they piled kimchi onto their hotdogs and played the Korean version of rock, paper, scissors. Years later, when they moved to California, they visited National Parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Arches, in awe of their impossible grandeur.
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summer 2021
essay
your national parks magazine
essay
your national parks magazine
Utopia in Bursts: The Insitute of Queer Ecology
A pervasive and narrow-reading of Darwinian evolutionary theory provided further cause for queer subversion. That reproduction and competition is the crux of all life on earth is one the earliest, most fundamental principles taught in biology, summarized roughly as the “survival of the fittest.” This limited understanding, however, has led to a harmful and widespread determination that, scientifically, queerness is unnatural when it is anything but—biology is brimming with instances of queer life.
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A pervasive and narrow-reading of Darwinian evolutionary theory provided further cause for queer subversion. That reproduction and competition is the crux of all life on earth is one the earliest, most fundamental principles taught in biology, summarized roughly as the “survival of the fittest.” This limited understanding, however, has led to a harmful and widespread determination that, scientifically, queerness is unnatural when it is anything but—biology is brimming with instances of queer life.
Read more
fall/winter 2020
profile cura
profile cura
On Russian Terraforming: The Space Race to Re-Engineer Our Imagined Futures
Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Alexander Mamut in 2009, the Strelka Institute is hardly what one might expect from a Russian university. With a mission to "educate the next generation of architects, designers, and media professionals, enabling them to shape the 21st century world,” it feels distinctly of the kind of heady cultural ilk affiliated with DIS Magazine and Hito Steyerl videos (i.e. intellectually radical, politically egalitarian and decidedly "cool").
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Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Alexander Mamut in 2009, the Strelka Institute is hardly what one might expect from a Russian university. With a mission to "educate the next generation of architects, designers, and media professionals, enabling them to shape the 21st century world,” it feels distinctly of the kind of heady cultural ilk affiliated with DIS Magazine and Hito Steyerl videos (i.e. intellectually radical, politically egalitarian and decidedly "cool").
Read more
the dirt issue
2020
essay
silica mag
essay
silica mag
Golf Poems: A Transcendentalist Ode to the Anthropocene
meander the coastal dunes during the front nine to the rocky coastline
a shot over the Pacific,
guarded majestic oceanfront
par three’s number fifteen
number sixteen par four seventeen
back-nine Holy Grail
its place in the upper echelon of history
Read more
meander the coastal dunes during the front nine to the rocky coastline
a shot over the Pacific,
guarded majestic oceanfront
par three’s number fifteen
number sixteen par four seventeen
back-nine Holy Grail
its place in the upper echelon of history
Read more
the homeland issue 2019
poems
silica mag
poems
silica mag