kate-hers RHEE and Viêt Lê gave provocative performances on topics of othering, gendered experience as an adopted immigrant, and navigating and creating queer spaces in performance art. Transnationalism being a center piece of her artwork, RHEE’s performance incorporated members of the audience to read seven excerpts that related to the sentiments of neo-imperial intimacies through the medium of poetry. Creating an interactive space for performance and lecture, RHEE invited the audience to empathize with her scholarly and personal passions as we collectively internalized the implications of her work. Putting RHEE’s performance in conversation with Race, Migration, and Sexuality, it is clear to see connections to RHEE’s work as an adopted Korean immigrant and her personal experience of growing up in Detroit’s Asian-American community. Although not necessarily connected to either identity, RHEE had to navigate a transnational experience that was dictated by an non-censual migration to the United States. RHEE’s performance captured this experience while also incorporating her current extending from her post-graduate study at the Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt.
Viêt Lê explored some of his previous works and projects that incorporate a queer-centered experience in performance art in the non-western media. From music videos and museum installations to public performances, Lê addresses similar themes of transnationalism, interactions involving othering behavior, and how these East and Southeast Asian conceptualize a queer experience. In reflection, the two artists works were shocking, powerful, and eye-opening as someone with little background into the performance arts as a means of academic engagement.
Evan Barton ’20 is a 20W RMS scholar researching incarceration of Native Women in Oklahoma.
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