A new exhibition featuring artists from Galería de la Raza and Kearny St. Workshop, presenting a cross-cultural response to current immigration debates

Partipating Artists:
TRUST YOUR STRUGGLE CREW -
Borish, Cece Carpio, Eric Camins, Mike Coredero, Miguel “Bounce” Perez, Scott La Rockwell, Shaun Turner, Robert “Tres” Trujillo, & Erin “Yoshi” Yoshioka

KEARNY STREET WORKSHOP/VIDEO ARTISTS -
Tanuj Chopra, Tze Chun, Amber Field, Pia Infante & Stephanie Yang.

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 28th @ 7:30 p.m.
DJs Wonway Posibul & Shred One
Exhibition Dates: August 8th - September 26th
Suggested Donation $2

 

On The Wall is a dynamic exhibition comprised of both Latino and Asian Pacific Islander emerging artists. Through the mediums of spray paint, installation and video, the featured artists examine the current issues of the immigration debate, such as shifting identities, cultural ownership and community building. On The Wall is the last exhibition of the year-long series, PICTURING IMMIGRATION, which included exhibitions and public events examining immigration from a variety of perspectives.

The exhibition will feature a large-scale installation and public billboard by the Trust Your Struggle collective, a group of visual artists and educators, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. The group is dedicated to social justice through art and works in conjunction with several other collectives, producing engaging exhibits and community events. This presentation at Galería culminates the 2008 Trust Your Hustle Mural Tour, which started in July in Brooklyn, New York and has traveled until now through Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

For the exhibit at Galería de la Raza, the Trust Your Struggle group will join forces with multitalented video artists selected by Kearny St. Workshop, creating a vibrant venue of art, thought, and cross-cultural community activism.

Kearny Street Workshop’s video artists include: Tanuj Chopra, Tze Chun, Amber Field, Pia Infante & Stephanie Yang, who thoughtfully explore questions of identity, race and class relations, and generation gaps in modern day society where cultures are continually informed by one another.

Both/And, by Stephanie Yang. 6:32 min.
The film explores questions of identity between father and daughter in an immigrant Taiwanese family. The story revolves around how the daughter (Yang) and her father both have two names (a Chinese and an English name) and how it is through these names that they connect with the heritage of a country of origin (Taiwan) and with the country in which they call home (United States).

Stephanie Yang is a mixed-race, Taiwanese/European American artist living in the Bay Area. Stemming from her experiences of being Hap, much of her work focuses on the amorphous lines between race, identity and self in urban settings. Her films have screened nationwide in a variety of queer, people of color, and Taiwanese-American spaces. Currently, she is exploring interdisciplinary and collaborative projects with artists in San Francisco and Vancouver, digging into metaphors of home and the vulnerabilities of desire. She is a writer, a collage artist, and filmmaker.

Jagadamba, Mother of the Universe, by Amber Field, 10:00min
Jagadamba, Mother of the Universe is a tender, inspirational documentary on Amber Field's personal healing journey through music, breath, and spirit. The film debuted at the Queer Women of Color Film Festival in San Francisco. It will also show at the Asian Adoptee Film Festival in Hawaii and the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival in the fall of 2008.

Amber Field is a queer transnational Korean adoptee performance artist, musician, and filmmaker. She studied Indian classical music at Viswa Bharati University in West Bengal, India, from 2002-4. Amber specializes in world fusion music, and plays tabla, esraj (bowed stringed Indian instrument), didgeridoo, djembe, riq, and sings. Amber is working on a one-woman show that uses theater, storytelling, music, poetry, and video to explore transnational adoption, race, and sexuality.

Windowbreaker, by Tze Chun,
Two immigrant children take matters into their own hands when a string of break-ins creates a wave of paranoia in small town suburbia.

Tze Chun is a Los Angeles-based writer and director who has completed numerous short films including "Document" and "Back to the Front." "Windowbreaker" premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and Chun was recognized as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Filmmaker Magazine that same year.

Tanuj Chopra began making films as a student in 1998 with Hate Crime. Since completing his MFA from Columbia University, his TV, film, and commercial project have taken him from the Bay Area to India to NYC. His short film Butterfly screened at over 20 festivals throughout North American, India, Europe and Pakistan. Chopra's first feature film, Punching at the Sun, premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and also played at the Tribeca Film Festival and the SF International Asian American Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize.

Magic & the Moon by Pia Infante, 9min
When her mother leaves the Philippines to find work in the US, Magic waltzes around doubt and fear to find love.

The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Zellerbach Family Fund have funded the PICTURING IMMIGRATION series.