If A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
If a picture is worth a thousand words …
This story was originally e-mailed in The Slant on June 30, 2017.
… then 80 of ‘em are worth eight years of hard work, 26 cities in 20 states, and 7,500 miles of travel.
That’s what Bay Area photographer Mia Nakano discovered in 2009. She’d spent years taking portraits in Nepal, but Nakano wanted to do a project that aligned more closely with her identity as an openly queer media maker.
So she launched the Visibility Project, a photography and documentation project focused on the queer Asian Pacific Islander women, trans, and gender non-conforming community.
That’s where the 7,500 miles come in.
Hope she had a This American Life backlog
Right? On June 2, Nakano released Visible Resilience, a book of 80 portraits of participants throughout her eight years of travel, from all over the country. She even developed an educational curriculum, teaching queer Asian Pacific Islander history for students as young as 11.
Oh, and on the same day her book released, Nakano launched the Resilience Archives, a “digital history tour map” showcasing achievements in the Asian Pacific Islander LGBTQ community. ‘cos anyone can do just a book launch.
No rest for the wicked(ly talented)
Visitors to the digital project can scroll through a map and click through milestones in LGBTQ history, getting a digital “walking tour” through preserved workshops, film screenings and other memories.
(It’s almost entirely limited to San Francisco, but as it’s user-generated, anyone can add significant events to the map, so there’s potential to scale.)
After a standing-room-only exhibition in San Francisco, the Resilience Archives are headed to Oakland. But knowing Nakano, that’s probably the start of a long journey. Hope she wears compression socks.
Sm(art): The Visibility Project
Bitch MediaSM{ART}: THE VISIBILITY PROJECT
by Kat Kimberley
Published on February 20, 2010
What makes “good” Art?
Despite what museums curators, art critics, and other “established” representatives tell you, “good art” usually boils down to a matter of individual taste. Me, I get bored looking at bucolic landscapes paintings. Did I mention those child angels from the Victorian Era really creep me out? Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to enjoy the soft pastels of Monet or the drooping clocks of Dali. But I don’t. Given the choice, I’ll take a screenprint by Favianna Rodriguez over a Warhol or a Jennifer Linton over a Degas.
Most of the art our culture celebrates is the same type of art that makes me yawn. See, I enjoy art that gets my blood racing. For me, good art needs to be both aesthetically appealing and make my brain hurt. Because of my intense predilection for this type of provocative eye candy, I was exceedingly pleased recently to discover the Visibility Project—a female, Asian American, Queer portraiture project by Bay Area Photographer Mia Nakano and Los Angeles collaborator Christine Pan.
At an art gallery called Seed Corn in San Francisco, I stumbled upon their work. The gallery is operated by The Greenlining Institute as part of a broader Community Arts Initiative which “serves as a way to acknowledge the debt that social justice movements owe artists.” Bingo! I rushed inside—this sounded like just my cup of tea!
From across the room, a single photograph caught my eye. As I approached the portrait to look into the eyes of the subject my mind spewed out categories “Woman” “Asian” and “Queer.” But just as soon as I had pegged this person into narrow, culturally defined pigeonholes, I began to be troubled by my reductive thinking. My conscious grew angry at my brain. Why couldn’t my mind view a face without forcing it into a constructed category? Was gender and sexuality somehow being performed in these photos? How could I relate without stereotyping?
Little did I know, the internal moral tug-o-war taking place within my head over these shifting categories was the expressed intention of the artists. The Visibility Project was launched in 2008 by Photographers Mia and Christine as a way to present the strength, emotion, passion, and diversity that exist within the Queer Asian American community. Nakano and Pan began the project by putting out emails to their networks for 12-15 Asian American persons who identified as queer females, whether it be a lesbian, bisexual, mtf, ftm, or genderqueer orientation. The email was simple and said “come as you are.” There was no stylist or make-up artist, or prearranged wardrobe. The response they got was overwhelming and the show quickly expanded to 40+ participants.
Recently, I spoke with Nakano about her interests in photography and the intersections between race, gender, and sexual orientation in her work. She described her inspiration stemming from her travels to Nepal as a photojournalist where she documented Nepali GLBTQI human rights workers of the Blue Diamond Society, the largest queer rights organization in Nepal. “It was phenomenal to engage with queer rights activists who put their lives on the line by being out and being visible.” She continued, “Once, I rode on a bus for an hour with a BDS activist to reach a “possible” lesbian, to let her know that yes, there were other people like her, and a small but dedicated community who would support her. “
Since retuning to the States and founding the Visibility Project with Christine Pan, the work has rapidly taken on a life of it’s own thanks to generous support from AQWA (Asian and Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Activists) RayKo Photo Center and Astraea. The project has moved beyond photos to include video segments with participants speaking about issues like Proposition eight, gender and sexual identity, as well as the process of coming out in multi-ethnic communities. The portraits have been featured in a handful of galleries throughout California and the project is now expanding to include participants in cities across the country, and will culminate in a book and short documentary film.
If you ask me, these are not only beautiful portraits, but on a deeper level, they help to humanize the diversity and complexity embedded within constructed categories. That’s what I call good art! While the Visibility Project photos may never be canonized, or widely appreciated, they encourage the viewer to not only appreciate fine art, but in doing so, to contemplate identity, culture, ethnicity, representation, and sexual orientation. Now, I admit I’m no expert on fine art but when’s the last time a Monet Lilly pad or a Degas ballerina made you do all that?
Diving Deep into #PulseOrlando – Guest speaker on APEX Express
On June 23rd, Visibility Project Director, Mia Nakano was a guest host on APEX Express and moderated a discussion around how #PulseOrlando impacted the LGBTQ AAPI community, particularly with Queer Muslims.
Download or listen to the program here.
Tonight on APEX Express, we have guest host Mia Nakano with the Visibility Project, a national portrait and video collection dedicated to the Queer Asian American Women & Trans* community. She helps us delve into a discussion with our community about life after the Pulse Orlando tragedy. We bring you perspectives from queer, radical Asian American, South Asian, and Muslim community members including Cayden Mak from 18 Million Rising, an AAPI political advocacy and awareness organization, Poonam Kapoor and Mohammed Shaik Hussain Ali from Trikone, a Bay Area based LGBTQ South Asian group, and writer and activist Canyon Sam.
MIA’S INTRO
On Sunday, June 12th, 49 people were killed during one of the largest mass shootings in US history. A hate crime where a single shooter targeted the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer community. A hate crime that took the lives of many young Puerto Rican men, black and brown folks, and people of color who were targeted at a Latinx night. This crime took place at Pulse, and much of the media is reporting Pulse as a nightclub. But Pulse was much more than that to the residents of central florida, it was a community center, it was a gathering space to spend time with other LGBTQ folks, it was a safe space whose safety was violently shattered in one of the most horrific and violating ways.
What happened at PulseOrlando is a tragedy, but to me, it wasn’t senseless. It’s a large scale manifestation that shows how the LGBTQ community consistently faces violence, oppression, and isolation. Every 29 hours a transgender person is either killed or commits suicide. When an LGBTQ person comes out to their close family or friends, if they experience rejection, they’re 7 times more likely to attempt suicide. I state these two facts, because even though we see many more LGBTQ people in the media, on television, and in movies, the violence enacted against our community is on the rise, and is disproportionately affecting people of color and specifically black and brown transgender people.
Community centers, like Pulse, places to dance and be free, and pride, are all supposed to be safe spaces for the LGBTQ community. What happened at PulseOrlando has shattered that in a very large way.
ABOUT APEX EXPRESS
APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Asian Americans from all corners of our communities. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, djs, and activists and airs each week on KPFA 94.1FM.
Out and Successful, Mia Nakano
Mia has been attracting a lot of attention in the Queer API world with her incredible photos of folks who are Queer API for the Visibility Project. Asian, Gay and Proud is extremely excited to welcome her here to this space to get to know her better. Interview by Miyuki Baker