Yi Cynthia Chen on “Willful Dialects”
Yi Cynthia Chen and I first crossed paths in October, at a gallery in Boston. Somewhere between the art and the small talk, she mentioned an exhibition she was working on—one that would center Asian-American and Asian Diaspora artists working in and around the city. A few months later, she followed up with an email about Willful Dialects. The name alone stuck with me.
Now, just ahead of the exhibition’s opening, we meet again—this time over Zoom—to talk more deeply about her curatorial process, the artists involved, and the emotional and political textures that informed the show.
What follows is a conversation about willfulness as resistance, about community as methodology, and about language in all its spoken, visual, and felt forms.
TIMA SWARAY
The title Willful Dialects draws from Sarah Ahmed's Willful Subjects. That influence feels so present in the show's embrace of contradiction, refusal, and specificity. How did that title come to you? What does willfulness make possible in this curatorial context?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
One thing that felt particularly relevant to the idea of Asian-American identity was the work of Edward Said, the Palestinian-American author, whose work remains so relevant today. I recalled that Said's work had been mentioned in Sarah Ahmed’s Willful Subjects, which I had read many years ago and which re-surfaced during the curatorial process.
As I was thinking through the ways that different Asian American and Asian Diaspora artists relate, I kept returning to the idea of how language and art are vessels through which we can speak things into existence. Ahmed notes that people outside of the norm are deemed "willful," when they're really just trying to exist as their full selves. She says that this willfulness, even with its negative connotation, can be a kind of electricity that ignites people to embrace their differences.
That idea was relevant to the creation of a space where Asian American artists were not just a section, but centered. A place where their specific narratives or aesthetic practices could be executed, albeit within the confines of a group presentation, with their full will.
TIMA SWARAY
I've been viewing this exhibition as a way for Asian American artists to refuse the singular, fixed notions that are prescribed to them, especially concerning what larger institutions read as "Asian art." I'm curious how you think about legibility, how artists navigate or resist those expectations, and how this show is encouraging that resistance.
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
A lot of the works consider the duality of hypervisibility versus invisibility, and how that either flattens or deepens understanding.
Part of the purpose of the exhibition was to provide a place where people felt like their works could be in genuine conversation, so that the spectrum of legibility could be based on how much the artists themselves want their work to be transparent or a point of confusion.
One of the artists, Sopheak Sam, had mentioned in the early stages of curation the text Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability by Vivian L. Huang. Huang considers how inscrutability can be an intervention. How refusing to be understood transparently, and thus singularly, can be a source of self-preservation. I recently attended a talk titled “Inscrutable Skin, Opaque Aesthetics: Relating Asian American and African American Illegibility” at the Association for Asian American Studies conference held this year in Boston. UC Santa Barbara’s Clara Chin presented on a theory that analyzes how artists such as William Pope.L and writer Ling Ma present active disappearance to linger in a state of radical possibility.
Joanna Tam has a section of their art practice which most actively looks at legibility dichotomies, specifically through the lens of visibility. I am looking forward to Joanna’s workshop at the gallery Mapping Asian-American, which will be mentally exploring these shifting vocabularies.
Another artist in Willful Dialects, Sara Elbashir, will share a hanging calligraphic sculpture. She's Sudanese and was born in the UAE, a country in West Asia. I reference her work because her interpretations of poetry draw on how movement brings us together, in a way that lets us reconsider identity as a site of interconnection as opposed to something restrictive.
TIMA SWARAY
I would love to hear more about the Dream Portal Phone Booth. Why voicemail? What happens when we allow sound, ritual, superstition, and accent to be a part of the curatorial space?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
The dream portal invites us to communicate with our imaginations, with our dreams, spirits, and the public realm of what we hope for. crystal bi posed a question about how our experiences are deepened by our Asian identity. It really made me question how my identity influences my daily experiences. I came to see it through the lens that once you're able to process your reality, then you're able to better articulate what you would like to see the world.
TIMA SWARAY
You call this an anti-survey. I'm curious what sort of curatorial responsibility you feel assembling a show like this, especially in the context of Boston, with its very layered histories of race and immigration.
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
It's an anti-survey because curation is inherently subjective. There's no way for one person or even a group of 20 artists to be able to represent a diaspora made up of far more than 20 countries, let alone the intersections we each inhabit. That alone is evidence that it's not a survey, and that there's no way for us to claim we can represent it fully. It leaves open the possibility that there are things beneath the surface: more to explore, further questions, and that it's just the beginning of a process of uncovering.
With regards to your question about race and immigration— I am Chinese American and grew up in the Greater Boston Area. I didn’t choose to be born in America, although I am grateful for it because of the relative freedom of expression and form. It is bittersweet because Chinese people were the first group to be legally prohibited from becoming citizens based on race, via the Chinese Exclusion Act. This was repealed less than 82 years ago. Even today, the mere presence of Chinese Americans is seen as a threat to the nation state.
I bring this up because of the impacts of xenophobia on Asian American mental health. It definitely imbued a sense of self hatred in me, which is evident in needing to find a reason to justify my presence. I’m definitely not alone in this. (trigger warning) According to the Asian American Foundation, 48% of AANPHI youth score high for depression and nearly 30% of AANPHI youth report planning or attempting suicide within their lifetime. It was also the leading cause of death for Asian American youth aged 15-24, says CDC Data. Suicide is a form of trying to eat away at one’s self until one no longer exists, right?
So part of the curation stemmed from hinting at how aesthetics itself can be the vessel through which one’s existence is sanctioned. Where one’s self cannot be tariffed or deported. When one is unconditionally “allowed” to be present.
TIMA SWARAY
"Survey" is such a buzzword. So many press releases and exhibition texts for shows in larger institutions claim they are surveying a group of people, or a period of time. But the Asian diaspora, diaspora in general, is just so vast. I like to call work that disrupts this tendency to "survey" history and groups of people "heart work." I think of it as work that is meant to uplift a community, rather than constrain them into boxes. In that vein, how did your heart and your community guide you and lead you in this process of curating?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
Art is, in a way, an expression of what can't, but aims, to be seen. I was personally inspired to curate Willful Dialects after experiencing Wonder Woman curated by Kathy Huang at Jeffrey Deitch in New York City in 2022, which centered Asian American and Asian diaspora women and non-binary artists. Seeing that show made me feel like this fine art world might care about someone like me and what I have to say about my experiences.
I wanted artists to feel like there was a space for them, too. The current administration has stated that diversity is radical, something that needs to be taken away from our institutions. It is especially relevant to remember this blazing hope for art to be a place that appreciates what makes us unique.
Another way that this curation came from the heart was that at a certain point I kept ruminating on “how can I justify it to other people that this exhibition is important?" I knew that a show like this would have meant a lot to my younger artist self, but I kept trying to rationalize how I could get non-Asian Americans to care.
I’ve been lucky to have had access to Asian American and Diaspora professors such as Ihnmi Jon, Timothy Hyunsoo Lee, Kenson Truong, Cathy Lu, and Jennie Jeun Lee at my alma mater. In response to my question, artist Cathy Lu provided a useful reminder that "You don't have to justify that you're important. Asian American history is American history."
That will always remain true, that regardless of the circumstances, the fact that you exist is not something that has to be justified.
TIMA SWARAY
When minorities are doing work in their communities, they're expected to know everything, to provide everything, to be the be-all and end-all of their communities. What surprised you in the process of curating this show? What did you learn about language and identity?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
Initially, I wanted Willful Dialects to be very "identity-based" – that was the fire that lit the idea. I wanted each work to actively break down manufactured constructions of identity. I very quickly realized that Asian artists want to talk about so many different things.
Often, those intersections or moments of talking "around" are even a more powerful and a more accurate acknowledgement of the thing itself.
TIMA SWARAY
You sent me this article from Panorama, which talks about resisting the urge to frame Asian art solely through pain and trauma. How does Willful Dialects push against those interpretations?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
I was able to speak with Aleesa Pitcharman Alexander, the author of the article and co-founder/director of Asian American Art Initiative, who commented that care and community is a continuing aspect of how we process identity today. Activist Grace Lee Boggs is a clear precedent; she saw care as being essential to social change. This sentiment was echoed in MFA Boston’s recent exhibition Tender Loving Care, which featured both Lucy Kim and IMAGINE a.k.a. Sneha Shrestha, two artists who are in Willful Dialects.
Lucy Kim, Phalaenopsis (like a moth) #4, 2022. Melanin produced by genetically modified E. coli cells on paper, 44 x 36 in.
The work payal kumar does for Subcontinental Drift Boston and its larger South Asian diasporic creative community speaks to proactively caring for a community. Ajinkya Dekhane, who is based currently in Cambridge, is the co-founder of Mavelinadu Collective, an anti-caste publication and research organization. Both artists' overlap of their artwork and community practice are evidence that a central pillar of care is being present for ourselves and others.
The curatorial process considered these aesthetics of active presence. It requires being in the moment in a way that provides breathing room from the past and future.
Exhibitions are themselves works of art that you have to experience in person and be physically present for. Beyond this, many works in the exhibit present an active listening, stillness, and responding.
This activates in crystal bi’s Dream Portal, where crystal reached out to members of Boston’s creative community and initiated conversation to reveal answers for the phone booth.
It resonates in Ravinda D Wibowo’s sound sculpture, which is activated by interaction, and amplifies at will by pulling strings and turning knobs on the sides of the hexagonal sculpture.
Lani Asunción’s performance at the closing reception will be created in response to the exhibition itself. Performance art inherently is a work of art that includes the energy of the audience as its medium. These are a few of the works that think through the active molding of self and society through presence. And it's a beautiful thing, because it's a reminder that nothing is ever stagnant.
TIMA SWARAY
What would it mean for larger institutions to listen differently, to hear work like this without feeling the need to translate them?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
In order for institutions to not need community members to act as de facto translators, one must first know the language.
My painting Double Consciousness in A Museum of Boston is itself a translation of how the uncritical representations of culture in institutions directly affect its audience.
A lot of people can resonate with the experience of not being taught global perspectives in schools and institutions. So it makes sense that people require culture interpreters. I would personally love to see art institutions with more robust art historical and contemporary exhibitions about Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Native and Latin America. Such an environment would allow for more people to have a more general framework to understanding a variety of visual languages.
For example, MFA Boston’s African Art section is basically a hallway into the contemporary wing. A structuring in this manner has issues on multiple levels and needs to be addressed. This is just one example of the ways we can rethink art historical contexts at the institutional level.
Art history has always been rooted in its connections to other countries. I hope to see a reframing of those connections as integral to history itself.
TIMA SWARAY
Do you have any words of guidance for people who are coming to see the show? How can one engage with Willful Dialects without trying to extract from it?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
Come at it with an open mind, open heart. Come wanting to ask questions. Each artist is speaking their own language – personal, visual, technical.
Sinking into those dialects will make one's experience better. The more questions you can ask and the more curiosity you can lean into, the more you'll be able to get from it and begin to appreciate.
TIMA SWARAY
What do you hope people will take with them when they leave Willful Dialects?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
I hope they leave with an openness and an ability to be honest with themselves. I am so grateful for No Call, No Show and Distillery Gallery to have trusted me to execute what began as a small sprout of an idea, but which represents so many years of processing. It’s a testament to the fact that you're meant to be celebrated.
This exhibition exists in a way that I personally haven't seen in a Boston gallery to this scale before. I hope that people can be inspired to create their own spaces and trust that if they are passionate about an idea, that other people will care about it too.
TIMA SWARAY
We like to end our interviews with a few fun questions to shake off the heaviness of the interviews. Our first question is: what is your favorite childhood candy?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
Oh my god, I love candy. I love Hi-Chews and Laffy Taffys.
TIMA SWARAY
What are you getting into lately? What is the media you've been consuming, the songs you've been loving, the books you've been reading, all of the above?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
Naturally, I've been getting into Severance. I love the idea of dual consciousness. I've been cooking a lot lately, a lot of spaghetti, and working on my art practice too.
TIMA SWARAY
Is there anything else we can look forward to from you? What should we keep an eye out on?
YI CYNTHIA CHEN
I’m focused on Willful Dialects right now, so I’m drawing a blank. But you can follow me on Instagram, where I'll be sharing a lot of paintings I’ve been making. I have a show at the CICA Museum in South Korea coming up too.
Thank you so much for having me at Mister Zine, I love the new editorial space that you are breathing into life.
Willful Dialects will open at Distillery Gallery x No Call, No Show in South Boston on Saturday, April 26.
Designed by Chen Luo
