15. Furen Dai & Julia Kwon
Furen Dai and Julia Kwon discuss their recent projects and how they challenge ideas of racial and aesthetic categorization. They also speak about the erasure and devaluation of labor, especially the labor of marginalized individuals.
Julia Kwon (JK): It’s a huge pleasure to be in conversation with you. I have always appreciated your friendship and criticality towards artmaking throughout the years ever since meeting you in grad school.
Furen Dai (FD): I always enjoy sitting down to spend time with you. Thank you for inviting me to have this conversation. I would love to learn about your newest project.
Julia Kwon, Exultant Divergence, 2021, digital photo collage
JK: I have been working on a digital photo collage series titled Exultant Divergence where I curate my own work alongside the various works from contemporary art and art history. Inspired by Alpesh Kantilal Patel's deliberate 'productive failure' to write new transnational art histories as well as Édouard Glissant's notions on opacity, creolization, and rhizomatic identity, I intentionally confound expectations and make connections between my work to the works of various artists, including those who are not Korean, women, textile artists, or artists investigating identity through their work.
The project argues for the multiple histories of art that are constantly in flux. I present alternative ways of understanding my work to encourage viewers to make expansive recontextualizations of the work especially beyond the fixed and often essentializing lens of genealogy. I am interested in challenging existing power dynamics, categorizations, and the canon of art history as well as considering what it means to create transnational art histories.
I know that you are also interested in challenging institutional frameworks and systems of categorization especially in the context of art museums. Can you discuss how you do that through your recent project?
FD: Your new project prompts me to ask these questions: Can art history be transnational? Will the reception be the same when we share our history in different cultures? How can we translate a history from one culture to another?
In my recent body of work, I am looking at the racial categorizations in the United States and the museum categorization within encyclopedia museums. I started this project in the year 2019 when I was aware of the discussion around the questions included in the census form. After looking at all the census forms since 1790, I became aware of how language has changed and adapted to the times, and that a lot of words have already lost their function and have been preserved on paper. One question in the census form really stood out to me: what is the color of the person / what is the race of the person? I started to question who brought up the idea of race and who sets the definition of different racial categories. Then I started to see the aesthetics for beauty that underlies the racial theory and how those standards are being adapted in art history.
When I started to see a clear parallel between the racial theory and the aesthetics for beauty in art museums, I started to ask: where did the value of the art come from? Who and what contributes to the value of the work? All the invisible laborers in the museum space emerged, and I started to shift my attention to the pedestal and create work in various mediums that documents numerous pedestals I encounter in museums. I am currently working on a 3D rendered video work that is based on a ruin of a museum to question what the future of the encyclopedia museum looks like and whether we still need to keep this form of display of histories.
Furen Dai, On the Future Ruin, 2021, 3D rendered digital video, 8 mins 12 sec
JK: It’s so illuminating to hear your thought process. I really appreciate that you discuss the devaluation of labor and especially the labor of contemporary artists and art workers that often goes unseen or unacknowledged.
FD: Emerging artists are often wearing multiple hats and juggling different roles. It’s challenging but sometimes it’s also beneficial because it pushes us to perceive art from different angles. We get to look at the existing system from both within and afar.
JK: Your project leads me to think about the various work by artists that often goes underrecognized whether it is reading, writing, ideation, museum visits, studio visits, administrative work, teaching, or any other work completed within different institutions. There are so many activities that are necessary for sustaining a generative, creative environment but may never get actualized into an art object.
FD: Yes, just think about the amount of time we put into applications and proposals, and all of our unrealized ideas. I remember having a brief conversation with a person who walked by my studio. She saw the pedestal drawings and told me the story of her father who used to be a fabricator and built pedestals for museums. He had spent so much time on this one pedestal but when it was delivered to the museum it was mishandled and got damaged right away. He was rightfully upset and asked why they couldn’t treat his work with the same amount of care given to an artwork. This story led me back to my examination on what contributes to the value of art.
JK: Wow, exactly. I also think about the additional emotional and psychological labor that those from marginalized communities are forced to take on. With the recent rise in anti-AAPI hate during the pandemic, I experienced needing to put in a lot more energy to complete basic tasks and usual amounts of work while trying to counterbalance the weight of racism and structural inequalities. Individual and collective trauma felt from systemic oppression is an overwhelming burden, yet I have also found great support, camaraderie, and solidarity from and for so many others across diverse communities.
FD: Yes, I think these two years also provided us with a chance to pause, slow down, and think about what is truly valuable to us. People and artworks typically travel around the world. Once all the channels had been cut off, we started to ask: what can we do during the time of physical isolation in our homes? What are other possibilities for museums? How can we engage with museums and their collections when we do not have tangible access to the museums’ architectures and artworks?
JK: The limitations on our experience of the site and the physicality of artworks seem to have further emphasized the power of revolutionary ideas and intent, including being mindful of the impact that the engagement will have on the community that it serves. Your work encourages me to imagine a more inclusive and just future by asking questions on many important issues within the art world.
FD: I know that your work also considers the issue of labor. Can you share a bit more about your larger body of textile work that you feature in Exultant Divergence and how the two projects may be related?
Julia Kwon, AAPI Hate Affects AAPI Mental Health (71.7% of the respondents who experienced hate incidents during the pandemic report anti-Asian discrimination to be their greatest source of stress, much higher than any other pandemic concerns), 2021, Korean silk, sewn in the format of bojagi
JK: I have been creating interpretive Korean textiles in the format of object-wrapping cloth called bojagi to talk about othering experiences as a Korean American woman living in the States. I employ bojagi, which was historically created by women who had limited contact with the outside world since the early Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), to consider ideas such as tradition, craft, and feminized labor. I sew enlarged Korean object-wrapping cloths to wrap the figures like objects to discuss the objectification of Asianic female bodies.
I also disrupt the textiles in different ways through creating physical ruptures as well as embedding patterns found in contemporary issues. So, although the bojagi may have an aura of authenticity at first glance, the work contests the notion of cultural purity through the inclusion of various data, maps, charts, and graphs from current sociopolitical events. I aim to challenge the notion of authenticity and discuss the complexities of constructing identity within the context of globalism, capitalism, cultural hybridity, intersectionality, and the collective struggle for social justice.
I focus on exposing and challenging people’s preconceptions based on my gender and ethnicity in hopes that each and everyone of us may be seen as multifaceted, full human beings. The digital photo collage series shares the same aim as my textile work but more specifically discusses how works created by artists from marginalized communities should be included in multiple art histories and understood beyond the lens of genealogy. Exultant Divergence is political not only because I insert myself into the canon of art history as an emerging woman artist of color, but also because I invite everyone to actively partake in art and art history making. I believe that everyone should feel empowered to make their own interpretations of art using their unique set of knowledge and experiences.
FD: Is this an ongoing project for you? Will you be adding more collages to the series every time you create a new work? Are you creating your own archive through this project?
JK: It takes a while to make unexpected connections, compile images, and design the layout of the pieces but I am interested in continuing the project moving forward. By curating and recording my work and the various connections that I make to other artists’ work, I am definitely creating an archive for myself, which is extremely valuable and empowering. More importantly, I want the project to serve as an example to show what is possible for everyone—we do not have to solely rely on the dominant narrative but rather can create multiple art histories based on our own perspectives and experiences.
I believe, as artists, it isn’t difficult for us to envision a different world because we are constantly worldbuilding. We are able to take on different roles through our work to challenge existing systems and structures. I am grateful to you and so many others who continue to use artmaking as a revolutionary tool to help us imagine a better future for all.
Furen Dai, Museum Pedestal, 2021, Gouache on BFK Rives Printmaking Paper, 11”x13”
Furen Dai is an artist based in Boston and New York. She has presented her work at the National Art Center, Tokyo; Athens Digital Arts Festival, Greece; Art OMI, and Edinburgh Artists’ Moving Image Festival, Scotland, amongst others. She has participated in residencies including International Studio and Curatorial Programs (ISCP), Art OMI, NARS Foundation. She received public art commission from The Art Newspaper for Frieze Art Fair 2019 and Rose Kennedy Greenway in 2020. She is the recipient of The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Fellowship (2017).
www.furendai.com @furendai
Julia Kwon is an interdisciplinary artist whose work comments on the objectification of Asiatic female bodies, challenges the notion of authenticity, and examines the complexities of constructing identities within the context of globalism, cultural hybridity, intersectionality, and the collective struggle for social justice. Her work is in the permanent collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery (Washington, DC), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (New York, NY), Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe, NM), and The New York Public Library (New York, NY).
www.juliakwon.com @artistjuliakwon