We’re headed to the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance conference from July 19th – July 22nd [NQAPIA (en-camp-e-ah)], in Washington, DC. Between the workshops and speakers we’re going to be squeezing in a shoot or two. Click for info about shoot details and contact us if you’d like to schedule a session.
Saturday, August 11th, 2012
Times: 11a-5p
Portland State University Queer Resource Center
1812 SW 6th Ave
458 Smith Memorial Student Union (in the north stairwell)
Portland, OR
Each session takes about 45 minutes. It will start off with a super mellow interview where you’ll be asked questions such as: Where were you born? How old are you? What’s your ethnicity? Why did you choose to participate? The second part still photography. Minimalistic images against a solid background.
All media will be posted on the Visibility Project website. and there are many potential uses for them such as lectures at schools, exhibitions, book, etc.
Can I use the images?
Participants will have access to an online gallery. The photographer & project must receive photo credit, and commercial/publication use must receive pre-approval.
We work on a first come first serve basis, if you can’t make your session please let us know asap so other folks can participate! Register with an email address you check frequently, more information will be sent after you register.
Camping out in NYC for a few weeks this summer and we’re taking appointments for shoots. Contact us if you’d like to schedule a session. The location is off the G-line in Brooklyn. Click here for more info
Sunday, October 21st, 2012
Portland, Maine
Each session takes about 60 minutes. It begins with a super mellow interview questions like: Where were you born? How old are you? What’s your ethnicity? Why did you choose to participate? The second part still photography. Minimalistic images against a solid background.
All media will be posted on the Visibility Project website and Vimeo page, with other potential future uses such as media releases, articles, lectures, exhibitions, book, etc.
Can I use the images?
Participants will receive 3-5 images via email and can use them for their facebook pages, bio images, promotion, etc. HOWEVER, the photographer & project must receive photo credit, and commercial/publication use must receive pre-approval in writing. We also super appreciate links to our website and facebook pages.
We work on a first come first serve basis, if you can’t make your session please let us know asap so other folks can participate! Register with an email address you check frequently, more information will be sent after you register.
And and!!! Jai Arun Ravine just released their first collection of works which was published by TinFish Press Books. Click on the TinFish link to purchase a copy of your very own.
“This powerful first collection by Thai American writer Jai Arun Ravine pulls itself and its readers across geographies, cultures, languages, identities, and genders in a performance of transformation. Ravine weaves Thai and English, the past and the present, the lyric and the narrative, into a hypnotizing poetic dance. Additionally, Ravine explores the documentation of identity and citizenship through re-articulating charts, pages of a child’s composition book, and a birth certificate. This collection explores the seams of identity and origin and how they are painfully and beautifully entwined.”
Desperately seeking LGBT memories of World War II incarceration
May 10, 2011 By TINA TAKEMOTO
Two years ago, I was invited to participate in E.G. Crichton’s project “Lineage: Matchmaking in the Archive” in which artists, writers and musicians were asked to respond to personal collections in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society archive. I was “matched” with Jiro Onuma, a gay Issei who moved to the U.S. from Iwate Prefecture, Japan in 1923 at age 19. Compared to some of the other collections in the archive, Onuma’s is rather modest. It consists of a few photo albums, some personal documents and papers, and a small collection of homoerotic male physique magazines and ephemera.
As I looked through pictures of the elegantly dressed Onuma posing with his male friends and lovers around San Francisco and other travel locations, two photographs captured my attention. Both were taken while Onuma was imprisoned at the Topaz concentration camp in Central Utah during World War II. The first is a group portrait showing Onuma and his mess hall workmates in front of Block #3 Dining Hall. The second shows Onuma, his close friend Ronald, and another man casually posing together on barren prison ground with a guard tower and barbed wire visible in the distance…
Read more at NichiBei.org.
Spotlight: Mia Nakano
Redefining Queer/Asian/Female
Julianne Hing JUL 1, 2009
When Mia Nakano worked as a photojournalist in Nepal, she observed workshops intended to educate people in the countryside about queer, but primarily lesbian, identities. “I would ask [the facilitators], ‘How do you define the word?’ And every person gave me a different answer,” Nakano recalled. Her questions sparked a debate. Translators argued over terms and interpretations.
Nakano, who is based in the San Francisco Bay area, began wondering about the language people use to define themselves, especially when it comes to race, gender and sexual orientation. And thus, the Visibility Project was born.
Along with collaborator Christine Pan, Nakano has photographed more than 40 people to create a collective portrait of female, trans and gender queer Asian Americans. The series is also tied to surveys and films that document people’s struggles to define their identities beyond a butch/femme dichotomy or an Asian/non-Asian split. The Visibility Project explores the relationships between who we are, what we see and the language we use to describe all of it along the way.
But Nakano had other motives too. “Most of the material on Asian-American queer folks is very intellectualized, heady theses projects that aren’t accessible,” she said. There was always so much text, but never the faces of the people featured in the writing. The Visibility Project was Nakano’s response to that, too—the chance to empower a community to speak for themselves.
For more information, check out visibilityproject.org