#asianamericanfeminism
Shriya Samavai is a photographer and poet of Indian descent living in New York City and a featured artist in Sakhi’s upcoming show, “Gender Justice + The Arts: An Asian American Showcase” at Bowery Poetry Club on 7/31! She works to empower people of color and gender non-conforming people through her photographs and poems. She has written and photographed for publications including Vice, Rookie Mag, and The Huffington Post. In March 2017 she published her first chapbook ‘Somewhere Between Silver & Gold’, a collection of poetry on gender, religion, and dissociation. Find her on Instagram at @shriyasamavai.
Can you describe your art / poetry / writing / music and your artistic process?
Photography is my primary art form, and I use it as a way to document moments that feel worthy of being remembered. Sometime the images are impactful to others, sometimes only to me. I love how making a good photo can make me feel like a superstar. When I photograph a subject and they see their true self in the image, it’s a confidence boost for them and for me too. Having a good photo of anything - whether it’s yourself or something important to you - can be so positively impactful and it feels really special to be a part of that. I’ve been writing poetry since grade school but only now am I figuring out my style, which is somewhere between free verse and prose. I write poems as a way to work through my thoughts and find patterns between events and ideas. More often than not, if I have a question at the onset of a poem, I’ve answered it by the end.
What does gender justice mean to you and how does your work explore themes related to gender and social justice?
A lot of my work is driven by empowering marginalized identities, with a focus on women of color and gender non-conforming people (of color or otherwise). There’s a lack of diverse representation in the industry and I’m motivated to help fix it. There needs to be more POC and GNC artists, writers, models, musicians, creators of any type represented in media. The process of documentation–whether I’m writing about my own identity or photographing POC and GNCP–is a step on the path towards increasing visibility in media and self-actualization.
Who is an Asian artist / writer / performer that inspires you and why?
I am infinitely inspired by Durga Chew-Bose, a writer from Montreal who loves the color purple and a young Al Pacino. It’s so easy to get lost in her musings on details that are overlooked by most.
What can Sakhi supporters look forward to seeing from you at Bowery on 7/31?
I’ll be performing a selection from my chapbook Somewhere Between Silver & Gold, a collection of poetry I wrote in New York City and India between 2013-2017. The pieces I’ll be reading pertain to navigating gender identity as a South Asian.
What’s your favorite thing about summer in New York?
I love that the sun doesn’t set until late, that you can stumble across friends on the street because everyone is out wandering.
Bex Kwan is a queer/trans chinese-singaporean multimedia artist who works in words, food, and performance, and a featured artist in Sakhi’s upcoming show, “Gender Justice + The Arts: An Asian American Showcase” at Bowery Poetry Club on 7/31! Their creative practice asks questions about family, faith, domestic labor, race, migration, and tenderness. Bex has been invited to present at theaters/galleries/ universities in Singapore and the US, including La MaMa and Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and was a part of EMERGENYC—the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program. More at www.bexkwan.com
Can you describe your art / poetry / writing / music and your artistic process?
I’m a performer, cook and organizer. I mostly write the poems I perform on the C train, in the “notes” app on my phone when I run out of downloaded podcasts. I’ve never really written to process, I guess, but I think about performing as a way for me to puzzle through questions that I haven’t figured out yet. Like maybe someone who’s listening is trying to think through the same thing and we’re having a brainstorm session. I’m drawn to creating gentle moments where people direct their energy inward and take a second to be still. Maybe it’s a meal that you can’t scroll through Facebook while eating it because it demands your undivided attention. Or a string of sounds that makes you rack your brain trying to remember which 90s song you heard it sampled in. It’s all about the audience for me, you know that moment when you feel the whole room levitate with you. It’s my favorite.
What does gender justice mean to you and how does your work explore themes related to gender and social justice?
My art making stems from a need to make mirrors for my communities to see ourselves, to know that the ghosts we struggle with are big and real, and to build the power in all difficult and magnificent parts of our being. I think about my creative practice and my organizing practice as one in the same, except with different materials. One involves text, voice, food. Another involves people, money, land. Both come from the understanding that the relationship that queer/trans asian-ed bodies have to a white gender narrative is inherently connected to the way the U.S. has and continues to amass wealth and power as an empire. Both are ways that I work through and to bring more free.
Who is an Asian American artist / writer / performer that inspires you and why?
I’m gonna cheat and list a couple: I think the work that Equality Labs does is awesome. I’m looking forward to Janani Balasubramanian’s speculative fiction novel. Mia Katigbak is a power house producer and breathtaking to watch onstage. They all do hard work with tenderness, and that sits right with me.
What can Sakhi supporters look forward to seeing from you at Bowery on 7/31?
A couple of poems and maybe a cute outfit.
What’s your favorite thing about summer in New York?
My dog looks 100% happier in the summer because it’s hot so their mouth hangs open. Picture below:
Kai Williams is a fiction writer / spoken word poet based in New York City and featured artist in Sakhi’s upcoming show, “Gender Justice + The Arts: An Asian American Showcase” at Bowery Poetry Club on 7/31! Most recently, she received an Honorable Mention for her submission to the New York Times’ Modern Love college essay contest. She is a 2015 alumna of the National YoungArts Foundation, as a national finalist in writing. Her work has been published in The AmerAsia Journal, Pushing Past Limits: Young Writer’s Anthology published by VerbalEyze Press, For the Sonorous Magazine and Mask Magazine. She is also a founder and Executive Director of Eat At The Table Theatre Company, a non-profit theater arts organization for young actors of color. Catch Kai at our show this month and on Instagram at @kainaima
Can you describe your art / poetry / writing / music and your artistic process?
When I decide to a write spoken word poem I generally carve out a specific time of the day or night that will put me in the most vulnerable and creative mindset. 4:00 AM is a good time for this. 11:00 PM is a good time for this. Ambiance is important to me so I’ll put on music that aligns with my mood and surround myself in my notebooks. And then I just sit with my laptop and try to write down every single thought I have about the subject that’s compelling me to write. This can take hours. When I write down an idea that strikes me as particularly interesting or as the correct approach for the poem, I just follow that lead and write until I have a first draft. After that, it’s a process of editing and exploring performance techniques.
What does gender justice mean to you and how does your work explore themes related to gender and social justice?
Gender justice is a primary theme and motivating factor in my work, particularly my poetry. My work is primarily concerned with analyzing the processes of self-identification for women of color. As a mixed-raced, loudly third-wave feminist young writer from the Bronx who has navigated primarily predominantly white institutions, nothing moves me more than exploring the relationships between other girls of color my age, and the unique, unbidden magic that they carry with them just to survive their daily worlds. I am obsessed with understanding how young women of color could find, pursue and maintain love for others as well as for themselves in spaces where they are starkly the minority. I perform spoken word to call attention to the injustices implemented by the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, using my interactions with the system as a young queer woman of color. Performance gives me an opportunity to vocalize my power beyond the page and I strive to empower and evoke experiences from other women of color.
Who is an Asian American artist / writer / performer that inspires you and why?
I really dig Awkwafina right now. She’s so New York. She’s got that vulgar, snarky, observational humor I feel like so many of my friends and I identify with as young women who grew up here. I think that rap is one of the greatest mediums of personal storytelling, especially for people who don’t stand to benefit from the systems in place in their communities. I love when people of color who grew up around, respect and revere rap, especially those you wouldn’t necessarily expect like young Asian women, choose to try their hand, even with comedy-rap like Awkwafina’s. She’s a girl from Queens who picked up this funny form of rapping and then kept finessing her way into really coveted, big Hollywood jobs on her unique wit and unwavering specificity of self. I can get behind that.
What can Sakhi supporters look forward to seeing from you at Bowery on 7/31?
I plan to perform spoken word poetry that delves into the intersections between race and womanhood. Recently, I am deeply engaged in creating poetry that speaks to the experiences of women who belong to multiple “minority groups”: namely queer women and women of color (and queer women of color). I am interested in dissecting the details of these intersections, the tensions that exist and conflicts that are developed in light of them, and the ways in which oppressions mimic one another.
What’s your favorite thing about summer in New York?
When I was living in Connecticut this winter and I couldn’t see a foot in front of me because the snow was coming down with such a vengeance I felt as though it could wipe out my entire history, all I wanted was to be in New York in July. I had this fantasy of stumbling upon a Mr. Softee truck, ordering a chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinklers, then walking the length of 125th between St. Nick and 5th Avenue while listening to Beyoncé’s “Dance for You” and wearing something short and cute. My favorite thing about summer in New York is that feeling of utter freedom and bliss. There are little happinesses on every street and it’s warm enough to walk the streets until you’re satisfied with the amount you’ve come across that day.
