Since April 2020, in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, CCC launched the special virtual programming #ProcessWithArtists on our Instagram and website.
16 artists, artist groups, art organizations shared verbal and visual tips or stories of how they are coping through their artistic processes during the pandemic. This rigorous process both serves as a way for CCC's community to learn how to better support and listen to artists, as well as serving as a unique platform to promote process-driven ideas.
The project has garnered more than 5K views and received a lot of inspiring feedback and comments.🙌
#ProcessWithArtists #cccssanfrancisco #artcommunity #stayathome #chinatown #shelterinplace #apiheritagemonth
Special thanks to our artists for their wonderful contributions:
Tina Takemoto(@tt_takemoto)
Stella Zhang(@stellazhang_0)
Chun Yu
Michael Warr(@warrzoneinstant)
Heesoo Kwon(@leymusoom)
Cathy Lu(@_cathyclu_)
Gao Ling(ling_pq)
Hung Chun Zhang(@hong_chun_zhang)
Toolbox percussion(@toolboxpercussion)
Kuang-Yu Tsui(@kuangyutsui)
Hung Tzu Ni(@iitzunii)
Felicia Chiao(@feliciachiao)
Kevin VQ Dam(@kevinvqdam)
Jocelyn Tsaih(@jocelyntsaih)
Leon Sun, Queer Reads Library(@queer_reads_library)
Alexandmushi(@alexandmushi)
Thanks to the general support by Grants for the Arts; San Francisco Foundation; San Francisco Arts Commission - CEI; Wells Fargo Foundation; Fleishhacker Foundation; San Francisco Arts & Artists Relief Fund; made possible through the support of San Francisco Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts; under the direction of Mayor London Breed; and administered by Center for Cultural Innovation; Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Queer Reads Library
This week we are featuring the zine collection from Queer Reads Library 流動閱酷 (QRL, @queer_reads_library). Co-founded by Beatrix Pang (@smalltunepress), Kaitlin Chen (@chen_jiaxian) and artist-writer Rachel Lau (@racholauart), QRL is a Hong Kong-based mobile collection of books and independently published zines centered around queer subjectivity.
Queer Reads Library Book Selections1/3:
Socialist Realism by Trisha Low(tuhreesh)is a book-length essay about the author’s move from Singapore to New York, then the Bay Area. Her book explores gatekeeping within queer communities and activism in important and challenging ways, reminding us that identity and notions of belonging are often not straightforward or easy.
Queer Reads Library Book Selections 2/3:
Who is responsible for the extinction of p.e.pants? : The Days of Being Short, a documentation by Chenmiji(@chen_mi_ji), published by A book of no significance, Jan17, 2010.
*W14.3 x H19.7cm, 146 pages, Hand bound, Mono-color printed
Archived and collected by Queer Reads Library
*Donated by Chenmiji
'
Queer Reads Library Book Selections 3/3:
Tension by Pearl Low(@fumichun) is a personal and heartfelt comic about the artist’s experience growing up as a Jamaican-Chinese girl in Vancouver, BC. Low’s comic traces her hair journey from childhood to present day while touching on the intimate and political tensions that come with having curly hair. Low reminds us that the personal is political and the political is personal.
Co-founders of QRL Beatrix Pang(@smalltunepress), Kaitlin Chen (@chen_jiaxian) and artist-writer Rachel Lau(@racholaua)talk about their practices and reflections during the pandemic.
Alexandmushi
In 2019, ALEXANDMUSHI (@alexandmushi), a collaboration between Alex Nichols and Mushi Wooseong James, presented performance piece “Chair Conversation” on the theme of memory and the body for “The Body Electric”(curated by @re.riddle) at 41Ross gallery:
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“In ‘Chair Conversations’, a non-verbal durational practice, each artist takes a turn moving the other’s body while one sits eyes closed. Their goal is to practice seeing and being seen.”
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Two Chairs is a non verbal and durational performance (20-40 minutes).
ALEXANDMUSHI. Two Chairs: Mulino, Venice. 2017
ALEXANDMUSHI. Two Chairs: Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. 2020
ALEXANDMUSHI. Chair Conversations: French Quarter, New Orleans.2018
Jocelyn Tsaih
We invite Taiwanese-American Artist Jocelyn Tsaih (@jocelyntsaih) to share her mural process video in NY Chinatown.
In March, 2020, Jocelyn initiated the “Save Our Chinatowns”❤️ campaign to collect funds to donate to the businesses in both Chinatowns that are financially suffering from the pandemic.
“The local Chinatown communities have a special place in my heart as they have always provided a slice of home for me. I deeply admire the resilience of Chinese and Asian American immigrants who have created a home and a living for themselves here and I hope I can help some of them sustain their businesses and livelihoods.”
Saving Chinatown Campaign
Kuang-yu Tsui
In#HomeVideo, artist Kuang-Yu Tsui (@kuangyutsui) shares his reflections on staying at home during the COVID-19 pandamic.
“But everyone should know that we are evolving with the virus and the entire ecosystem.”
Heesoo Kwon
Artist Heesoo Kwon (@leymusoom), based in Oakland, California, creates this experimental video featuring her avatars (ancestors) during the shelter-in-place days.
“I am trying to find some meaning of the format of the game and the users' gestures of controlling my character and experiencing my shelter in place. And I am thinking about how my ancestors' would work in the game format.”
Kevin VQ Dam
We invited Vietmanese American artist/illustrator Kevin VQ Dam (@kevinvqdam) to share his illustration pieces: “Dragon Vase”🐉 and “Phoenix Vase” and reflections during the pandemic.
*Images: “Dragon Vase” and “Phoenix Vase” by Kevin VQ Dam (A take on classic imagery. One of two in a series), Risograph, 2019.
Felicia Chiao
Artist Felicia Chiao (@feliciachiao) shares 5 of her illustration l works:
Image#1: Stay Home (2019)
This piece recently went viral and many people think it's about quarantine (and now astrology?) but it's basically illustrating different states of depression.
Image#2: Peonies (2020)
It's peony season right now :)
Image#3: Candy Shop (2019)
I wanted to draw some of my favorite childhood snacks.
Image#4: Taiwan (2019)
My family is originally from Taiwan so we go a lot to visit relatives. This was drawn from my last trip and has some of my favorite restaurants on the signs.
Image#5: Better Days (2020)
Ironically this was made before quarantine but I had captioned it "sometimes you just have to wait."
+Mini-interview
Chun Yu
Hear poet and writer Chun Yu's experience in the past few months, and her newest poem.
🎙️ “In the video, I am sharing a new poem I wrote on April 3rd, the day the number of people tested positive for Covid-19 reached one million around the world.
Hung Tzu Ni
Taiwanese sound artist Hung Tzu Ni (@iitzunii)’s solo exhibition “Homing” at CCC gallery can be viewed virtually via 👉https://www.cccsf.us/post-1/homing.
👂🎙️ Listen to how Tzu Ni processes during the global COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan.
Michael Warr
#HomeVideo: writer and poet Michael Warr (@warrzoneinstant) recites his newest poem “To Your Assailant (Who Attacks Us All) -- A Rant in Progress” in front of the Asian Art Museum across from the San Francisco City Hall on April 19, 2020.
Gao Ling
#HomeVideo: artist Gao Ling@ling_pqshows us how to cook the authentic Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐) and what she is doing at home, check it out! 👀
Artist Gao Ling 高靈 (@ling_pq) shares her project “The Big Mist organic mask”(大霧有機面罩)😷, which started from 2016 when air pollution was still heavy in Shanghai that time. This is an ongoing project. From now on, some new masks will add into this project, especially more organic food masks.
In 2018, Chinese Culture Center featured Gao Ling’s work “The Big Mist Art Project” in the exhibition “Infinite Cycle 無限循環” at 41Ross. Gao Ling’s “the Mirror Series,” a collection of photographs of different cities, uses an absurd aesthetic visual language to warn of how air pollution can bring a city to its extremities.
Beili Liu
Artist Liu Beili (@beililiu) shares her ongoing project 1000 PRAYER MASK PROJECT: Beili sets a goal of giving away 1000 Prayer Masks (close to all 1000) and she is sewing community masks using THIRST prayer flags as a public art project (http://www.beililiu.com/THIRST). Wanna participate in Beili’s prayer masks project? Check it out: http://www.beililiu.com/prayer-mask *Image credits: Liu Beili
*1000 PRAYER MASK PROJECT is supported by SightLines(@sightlinesmag).
Cathy Lu
🙌 👀 See what artist Cathy Lu (@_cathyclu_) has been up to during “shelter in place.”
🎙️“I guess most of my thoughts during the beginning revolved around the limitations - not being able to go out, not having access to art materials (like clay). ”
Tina Takemoto
Thinking about all the creativity and vibrancy of Chinatown. We want to kick off the first post to debut "Touch Chinatown.”
🎬This cameraless film was created by participants in the Task of Remembrance Filmmaking Workshop led by Tina Takemoto (@tt_takemoto) at the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco on ⏰August 10, 2019. Participants worked together to transfer xerox imagery of San Francisco's Chinatown onto 16mm film leader using clear tape.
藝術家Tina Takemoto于2019年8月10日在中華文化中心主持“DIY電影工作坊”, 參與者學習製作了16毫米電影: 結合音樂主題圖像, 個人故事和華埠老地圖與舊照片, 使用藍曬法光影照片及電影膠捲。
Toolbox Percussion
Last May 2019, Toolbox Percussion (@toolboxpercussion) was presenting the flash exhibition “A double listen” (襄音) at 41Ross Gallery in San Francisco Chinatown, which was their first debut in the U.S. We want to share with you their recent creative piece “Transforming everyday objects into music”【家居聲音共襄擊樂：重塑日常生活的聲音藝術】that uses domestic objects to resonate with our daily experiences of sound.
“聆聽，是感知日常的其中一個渠道。張開耳朵，接收紛紜的聲音信息，卻未必等於聆聽。”
Leon Sun
Artists Leon Sun and Nancy Hom developed these posters (https://eastwindezine.com/dispatches-sf-freedom-hope/) as they were planning the Chinese Americans Support Tsuru for Solidarity art workshop in San Francisco Chinatown.
🎤Leon shares his thoughts about the current situation and time: “Having been here in this country now for fifty+ years and having been racially harassed from day-one, I still don't have an answer as to what to do in such encounters - at least not as an individual. How do you deal with irrational and often violent people? And when it can happen anytime, anywhere?”
