“A Deadly Monarch Moves in Mystery” // 2021
I have created these mixed media collages as a way to try to visually translate feelings, emotions, and experiences that I have carried since my youth. Using books, magazines, old photos, and printed messages and conversations that I have had over the past year, I cut and pasted bits of my life on pieces of paper.
The recent targeted murders of Asian women are a public iteration of the constant violence towards and fetishization of Asian women. It reflects the association between Asian women and exotic sexual desire, an association that leads white men to deem Asian women and sex workers as disposable temptations. The use of racial gaslighting, a tool that maintains white supremacy, has led people to view this hyper-sexualization as a privilege. Yet, the white male gaze that fetishizes us results from a history of conquest and imperialism, and is rooted in violence.
The cultures of Asian peoples have been morphed into an orientalist monolith. Tradition, art, cultural practices, aesthetics, are exotified, appropriated, and our people and our experiences are erased. The model minority works to hide the economic realities of many Asian Americans and to further a racial divide amongst people of color, when solidarity is our greatest power.
The rise in hate crimes towards Asian individuals comes with influence from fear mongering around China and sinophobia; anti-Chinese rhetoric is not new, and is embedded in US history. There are systems and structures that have been built to enable anti-Asian violence. We see this in sexual violence towards Asian women, the deportation of Asian immigrants, police violence towards disabled Asian folks, the incarceration of Asian Americans, the construction of a monolith, and the erasure of ethnic identities, experiences, and cultures. We must acknowledge xenophobia and anti-Asian racism while also recognizing and addressing the anti-Blackness within our communities. Our oppressor is the same.
While this art has allowed me to process and heal from trauma and grief, I also hope that my art, alongside the teaching and sharing of Asian experiences, can transcend the lens of “the other” and exist without relation to the white gaze. We all deserve to center our experiences of joy, love, and success, and be heard just the same.
The recent targeted murders of Asian women are a public iteration of the constant violence towards and fetishization of Asian women. It reflects the association between Asian women and exotic sexual desire, an association that leads white men to deem Asian women and sex workers as disposable temptations. The use of racial gaslighting, a tool that maintains white supremacy, has led people to view this hyper-sexualization as a privilege. Yet, the white male gaze that fetishizes us results from a history of conquest and imperialism, and is rooted in violence.
The cultures of Asian peoples have been morphed into an orientalist monolith. Tradition, art, cultural practices, aesthetics, are exotified, appropriated, and our people and our experiences are erased. The model minority works to hide the economic realities of many Asian Americans and to further a racial divide amongst people of color, when solidarity is our greatest power.
The rise in hate crimes towards Asian individuals comes with influence from fear mongering around China and sinophobia; anti-Chinese rhetoric is not new, and is embedded in US history. There are systems and structures that have been built to enable anti-Asian violence. We see this in sexual violence towards Asian women, the deportation of Asian immigrants, police violence towards disabled Asian folks, the incarceration of Asian Americans, the construction of a monolith, and the erasure of ethnic identities, experiences, and cultures. We must acknowledge xenophobia and anti-Asian racism while also recognizing and addressing the anti-Blackness within our communities. Our oppressor is the same.
While this art has allowed me to process and heal from trauma and grief, I also hope that my art, alongside the teaching and sharing of Asian experiences, can transcend the lens of “the other” and exist without relation to the white gaze. We all deserve to center our experiences of joy, love, and success, and be heard just the same.
©2023 by Sophia Yau-Weeks