Class of 2024
B.S. in Cultural Anthropology, Minor in Asian American & Diaspora Studies, Certificate in Documentary Studies
I received the Benenson Award to support Survivors Anchoring Art Narrative Garden (SAANG春风吹), a healing justice project for survivors of gender based violence and cyberbullying. In collaboration with several other artists (Laura Dudu, Alice Wang, yanki kung, Ash, Joyce), we translated seven collaboratively written poems and created an illustrated poetry book titled Born Again 又-生 . From June to August, we had weekly/biweekly meetings to discuss the project. I used the funds to compensate collaborators and cover printing and shipping costs.
“Think back to a time – a space, a person, a moment – that made you feel safe. What are the sounds, sensations, taste, sight, and touch of safety you can remember?” In November 2023, we wrote seven poems in response to this prompt, having just connected over shared experiences of sexual violence and cyberbullying. We used a call-and-response method similar to exquisite corpse: everyone would start on one page, write for a few minutes, and turn to the next page to continue what another person has written.
Writing in response to each other’s memories allowed us to collectively hold multiple realities at once – to return to our bodies as a site of resilience and resistance. Sometimes it feels like a tornado is about to devour us; other times we are reminded of our strength in navigating dark waters and our capacity for joy, play and experimentation. We created this book to create a world between sleep and reality, a mesh of bodies, feelings, nightmares and daydreams.
We designed the book in the aesthetic of an illustrated children’s book. Each poem is printed over several pages of vellum paper like a small booklet, with one stanza on each page, the words overlapping on one another to simulate the original collaborative writing process for the reader. Colorful illustrations unique to each poem gently hold the vellum papers, and the seven booklets then become hand-stitched into one book. As we are creating out of shared experiences of trauma and pain, we want to remind ourselves of the tenderness and wonder we continue to embody while caring for each other.
It is our hope that for survivors who have experienced sexual violence, cyberbullying, and/or power abuse, this book can sail us towards boundless possibilities and futures.
As of September 2024, we are finalizing hand-binding 80 copies of the book for upcoming public release. The book is available in two versions: in English and in Chinese. One sample copy is on view in Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective’s The (Ruins of) Ciba Shrine 糍粑庙 as part of to hold a we exhibition in BRIC Brooklyn from 2024.9/18-12/22.