Project Background:

Aishman and Sloat met in Boston during graduate studies in the Tufts University/Boston Museum School program. They began the Half Asian project in 2001, interested in expressing the unique condition of being multi-racial Asian. Ben (Half-Taiwanese) and Steve (Half-Japanese) had shared experiences of being mistaken for a number of different races, for being assumed to not be Asian while in Asia, despite speaking the native language, and for being interested in creating a visual community of half-Asians where a physical community is not possible.

The first element of the Half Asian project is the Trilogy photographic series, where more than 100 people have been photographed. The project has since continued to involve more photographic series, as well as video works and multimedia installation pieces. Work from this project has been shown in galleries and museums on the East and West Coasts and has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the New York Times.

Project Statement:

Being half Asian in the U.S. is an interesting reflection of the social and political history of the country. Because of exclusion laws, the population of Asians in the United States was relatively minor until 1965, when laws were loosened to allow for widespread Asian immigration. Consequently, mixed raced Asians in America tend to a young, but exponentially growing population. This project aims to engage conditions of being half Asian in a visually provocative and conceptually innovative manner that extends beyond identity politics towards greater modes of visual perception.

The first series in this project Trilogy involves the half-Asian sitter looking more “Asian”, “Neutral”, or “Western” with backgrounds that correspond to the specific photographic portrait convention. Seen together, the backgrounds great a color scheme that reflects how American this phenomenon is. This series is a collaboration with the sitter as well, they “perform race” in a certain sense as a reflection of their own experiences, allowing the viewer can decide how successful this act. Responses to this series confront the nature of the viewer’s own perception, a common quote is “Oh, they don’t look very Asian.” This begs the question, “what does Asian look like to you?”

During the opening for “Half Asian”, a live photo studio is on hand to document half Asian people for the Trilogy series, turning the photo shoot from a documentary event into a performative one as well. Images from this shoot will be displayed in the second half of the exhibition, beginning March 2^nd.

The video project Offspring involves the morphing of the “Neutral” photographs of two friends from the Trilogy series , one is Scandinavian/Indian and the other is Austrian/Chinese. Coming from very different ethnic makeups, they morph into each other seamlessly, creating new racial hybrids in the meantime. This constant flux of facial composition challenges the viewer to determine where exactly the hybrid “individual” is, while in the midst of an ongoing variety of racial possibilities.

Bodhisattva is a series of faces with the imposition of green lines upon them. Made by the computer program to facilitate the smooth morphs from the Offspring series, facial characteristics such as the forehead, nose, and mouth are digitally traced and emphasized. Speaking of the imposition of technology upon the body, this digital trace also creates a startling association to physiognomic “studies” of race from the nineteenth century, reducing individuals to ethnic specimens.

In response to the need to record individual narratives of half-Asians in the United States, for the experience of racial hybrids varies greatly from urban to rural, from strong familial identities to looser ones, Porcelain is a series of photographs documenting aspects of these experiences. Location and setting become of great importance, as are relationships to friends, family, and other elements of one’s surrounding. Printed onto transparency, the images are illuminated by means of lightbox, granting a new luminance to each portrait, to each story.

Karaoke having a unique status as a hybrid of Asian and Western cultures, two pieces are included to reflect this condition. Kiss Me Karaoke is a series of videos of Half Asians singing karaoke. In each video, their voice is overdubbed with that of the actual singer, reflecting that universal cultural manifestation and creating a condition of distortion of the “reality” of the performance. Despite this, the personal experience of karaoke is seen, from the exhilaration of performing within the rock star persona to the deflation of the return to one’s own identity.

Trinitite is an interactive sculpture with glowing tatami mats, paper backdrops, a disco ball and a karaoke machine inviting participation in singing karaoke as a performance. During the opening for “Half Asian”, there was quite a bit of participation and interactivity with this piece, expressing the nuances of karaoke as a cultural product. The name comes from the radioactive substance created as a result of an atomic blast, referencing the events of WWII and afterwards, of the violent imposition of one culture upon another, creating new cultural hybrids.

Artist Bios:

Steve Aishman is a graduate of Princeton University and of the Tufts/SMFA master’s program in fine arts. He has taught at Harvard University, the Massachusetts College of Art, the SMFA, and is currently the chair of the photography department at the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Ben Sloat is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and of the Tufts/SMFA master’s program in fine arts. He has taught at SMFA, Tufts University, the Massachusetts College of Art and currently teaches at the Art Institute of Boston.

Work from the series has been exhibited nationally and presented in lectures at UMass Boston, SCAD, RISD, UC Santa Cruz, Harvard University, Coker College, the Society for Photographic Education National Conference, and the Association for Asian American Studies Conference.