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Pirated: a post asian perspective
INDIGO SOM
Bio
INDIGO SOM is a visual artist and writer based in the Bay Area. Her
work addresses a wide range of interests:
text, language and folklore; "American" identity; place, landscape and architecture;
repetition and accretion; and the ordinary or mundane. Exhibited in group and
solo shows at venues such as Mills College Art Museum and the New York Public
Library, Som's artwork is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern
Art and The Getty Center, among others, and collectors internationally and nationally.
She has been awarded several residency grants and recently received a Creative
Work Fund grant to support her collaboration with the Chinese Historical Society
of America on
the Southern component of her “Chinese Restaurant
Project”. Her work has been reviewed in such publications as The New York
Times,
Sculpture, and Artweek.
She maintains a website and blog at indigosom.com
South China, Natchez, Mississippi, 2004-5,
digital pigment print, 34"x34”.
Click thumbnails to view larger images. |
Project Statement
This project investigates the place of Chinese restaurants within
the American imagination and landscape. Chinese restaurants are
so ubiquitous throughout the U.S. that they constitute an integral
part of American life. As the most pervasively visible manifestation
of Chinese presence in this country, these restaurants have inadvertently,
but profoundly,
shaped common perceptions and concepts of
Chineseness–and Asianness. Yet this influence remains widely unacknowledged,
even invisible. I am particularly fascinated by Chinese restaurants in places
that appear devoid of anything (or anybody) else Chinese. These lonesome restaurants
metaphorically epitomize the issues outlined above, and emotionally parallel
my memories of growing up Chinese American in a mostly white community. Special
thanks to the Creative Work Fund for
generously supporting this work.
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China Garden, Yazoo City, Mississippi, 2004-5, digital pigment print,
34"x34”.
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