Creating from the Margins: Exploring the Role of Art in Asian American Activism

This project explores the role of art (in particular, visual art and poetry) in contemporary Asian-American activism. Can art be considered a form of activism? How are artists and activists pushing back against the stereotype of Asian-Americans as the passive, apolitical, “model minority”? By interviewing contemporary Asian-American artists whose work has a political focus, as well as conducting my own in-depth analyses of poetry and visual art by these same artists, I will explore the relationship between art and activism for AsianAmericans today. I will also contextualize the current wave of Asian-American activism within the history of Asian-American identity and the Asian-American movement that began in the 1960s