Hello Everyone!
I have stepped out from in front of the camera and been spending a lot of time working behind the camera helping friends with their awesome projects and delving back into my own photography. For those of you who don’t know, Jiz Lee and I used to have performance art duo where we did crazy ass experimental, psycho-sexual shit. It was called twincest, but we killed twincest off since we no longer perform together. You can still however go to twincest’s website and check out some of the old work. Most recently, I edited down some of the “death” footage we took during our last performance hurrah in Palm Springs on a whirlwind notice which just screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Will keep you posted if this ends up screening anywhere else or the other installments of this leak out…
I also have just started to get back into the darkroom and have begun to start processing all the rolls of film I took on my travels (lugging that heavy-ass Hassleblad may have paid off though). I am working on a very BIG personal project that is extremely near and dear to my heart and will let you all know once it is really rolling.
In other news, I want to give another shout out to my friends over at the Ms. Tang Tang Show. They are trying to make this really rad event happen just in time for SF Pride June 23rd. Drop by their Kickstarter page and see if you can help contribute to this kick-ass project.
And last but most certainly not least, artist and educator Tina Takemoto is collecting narratives of queer histories surrounding the internment of Japanese-Americans.
When I asked friends, relatives, activists, and scholars if they had come across other traces of LGBT camp histories or memories, the most common response I heard was, “I never really thought about the queer experience of camp.” Why is this the case? Why haven’t we, as a Japanese American community dedicated to social justice as well as racial and gender equality, thought about the queer perspectives on camp? How do we begin to uncover LGBT camp histories and memories? What internal and external factors have contributed to this legacy of silence around queer sexuality in Japanese American World War II history?
—Tina Takemoto at Nichibei.org
As a Japanese-American, there is so much about my person history that has been lost to the assimilationist dynamic and general suppression of Japanese culture post-WWII, I am personally very excited about Tina’s work and look forward to reading about these phenomenal stories.
More news to come so stay tuned in.
XO
Syd
