Alisa Yang is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker.[1]
Early life and Education
editYang grew up in a devout Evangelical household, which she views as a major influence on her art. Yang received a BFA from Art Center of Design in 2009 and completed an MFA at University of Michigan in 2016.[2]
Artistic Work
editYang has said that she works across mediums, and that her life and family provide material for her art, which often references themes of Asian cultural identity, generational trauma, and the body.[3] She frequently makes work that references her own chronic illness and the way that capitalism impacts the body by valuing productivity over health.[4] She invokes the concept of crip time, an idea from the academic realm of critical disability studies which describes how disabled and neurodivergent people experience time and space.[4][5] Her work involving illness and the body has been influenced by Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry.[3] Other cited influences on her work influences include Audre Lorde and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.[3]
Yang's film Please Come Again (2016), which focuses on Japanese love hotels as a metaphor for the female body, won the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Golden Reel Awards for Short Documentary.[6] In her 2016 film Sleeping with the Devil, Yang sought the services of a Skype exorcist, Bob Larson, at the urging of her Evangelical mother. Yang recorded the session as part of the film.[7] Sleeping with the Devil won the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s Best Regional Filmmaker.[6]
As an ArtPace International Fellow in Fall 2020, she created an exhibit, Wish You Were Here, which focused on self-care and community.[8] As part of the exhibit, which took place during the coronavirus pandemic, she created 300 care packages to send out to the community.[3] They contained objects such as sleep masks and "calming tea."[8] Yang described the packages as a way to combat the lack of care from the government and individuals during the pandemic with a community-driven mutual aid effort.[8]
Yang also rented a billboard in Dilley, Texas, near a family detention center that holds undocumented immigrants. The billboard reads: “Jesus was a Brown Child Seeking Asylum.”[8]
External Links
editReferences
edit- ^ "Alisa Yang". Scalehouse. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ ppandp. "Alisa Yang". CURRENTS New Media. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d "Meet Alisa Yang: Interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and activist". SHOUTOUT LA. 29 April 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ a b "Chronic Stillness: Wieteke Heldens & Alisa Yang". Lydian Stater. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ "Terminology | Critical Disability Studies Collective". cdsc.umn.edu. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ a b "Alisa Yang". COCA PROJECT | Open calls for artists. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ 華婷婷, Vivian Hua (14 February 2021). "Superb Short Films at Slamdance 2021: Top Picks in Narrative, Animation, Documentary & Experimental". REDEFINE magazine. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d "New Artpace exhibition explores self-care, protest, and representation". San Antonio Report. 18 November 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2022.