TROPICOLLAGE

Short looping video that collages footage from 30 years of futuristic sci-fi movies and television shows that employ a fetishized tropics trope.

WHY ARE THEY SO AFRAID OF THE LOTUS?

Published by the Wattis Institute & Sternberg Press, distributed by MIT Press. Newly commissioned texts and an edited selection, taking the work of Trinh T. Minh-ha as its point of departure and driven by the question “What are we learning from artists today?”

NEWS

Upcoming and recent events, projects, exhibitions.

ASIAN FUTURES, WITHOUT ASIANS (presentation)

Part critical analysis, part reflective essay and sprinkled throughout with humor, justified anger, and informative morsels, this illustrated presentation examines over 50 years of American science fiction cinema through the lens of Asian appropriation and whitewashing.

HELMET TO HELMET

Collage of the Philippine salakót (roughly translates from Tagalog to “native helmet”); how it was worn by Filipinos and Spaniards in the occupying Spanish army; then adapted into the pith helmet, since deployed by every white colonial power.

SEEDY SPACE PORTS & COLONY PLANETS

Visual essay and collage on the history and (sci-fi) future of the ancient Asian technology, the conical hat.

ASIANS HAVE BEEN HERE LONGER THAN COWBOYS

Billboard created for For Freedoms by Stop DiscriminAsian, on view in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Times on Virtually Asian

“Astria Suparak’s ‘Virtually Asian’ […] well worth checking out.”

New York Times on Virtually Asian

“Countering invisibility is at the heart of a short film by Astria Suparak titled ‘Virtually Asian.’ It splices together scenes from science fiction movies in which urban landscapes are filled with stereotypical ‘Asian’ signifiers, but the actual characters are almost exclusively white.”

Boing Boing on Virtually Asian

“Particularly prevalent are the Asian hologram advertisements that apparently occupy every cityscape in the future, from Blade Runner (1982) to A.I. (2001) to Minority Report (2002), and do we even need to start in on Ghost in the Shell (2017)?”

KQED review of Virtually Asian

“Suparak’s piece is immediate and her voice, narrating the words, is melodic and compelling. The over-dubbing of her acerbic observations on blockbuster films is a compelling prelude to other iterations of her work that will appear in fragments across digital platforms.”

VIRTUALLY ASIAN

Short video essay that looks at how white science fiction filmmakers fill the backgrounds of their futuristic worlds with hollow Asian figures—in the form of video and holographic advertisements—while the main cast (if not the entirety of their fictional universe’s population) is devoid of actual Asian people.

BECOME THE MONUMENTS THAT CANNOT FALL

A newly commissioned public art project and the first survey exhibition of art collective Related Tactics.

MATCHING MINORITIES// DOUBTFUL DOUBLES

“This is a pretty interesting experiment in real-time […] It’s heartening to see such a keen and engaged audience. Lee, Suparak, and Delos Reyes have set up a really successful platform for exchange.” – Hyperallergic

ASIAN FUTURES, WITHOUT ASIANS series

Series of projects, presentations, and texts on how white filmmakers envision futures inflected by Asian culture, but devoid of actual Asian people. A visual analysis of 50+ years of American science fiction cinema.

THE MUSEUM IS NOT ENOUGH

Co-published by Centre Canadien d’Architecture and Sternberg Press, this book is a result of collective reflections on architecture, contemporary social concerns, institutions, and the public.

WILD PARROT PLAYGROUND

A giant playground for the feral parrots that live in cities.

ETERNAL RETURNS

This exhibition is about living with history in the here and now and the distillations we carry into the future. These artists are meticulous researchers, utilizing chemistry, botany, math, religion, politics, and bureaucracy. They explore possibilities, capture turmoil and fallow periods, track displacement and migrations.