Artist-led Walkthrough of "Devoted"

Join us for an artist-led walkthrough of Devoted: Religion in Asian American Art, a group exhibition curated by Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) on theological influences in work by contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic artists. Three of the featured artists will be present to lead the tour: Zain Alam, Heesoo Kwon, and Sunnie Liu. RSVP is required.

About the Artists
Zain Alam is an artist and composer of Indian Pakistani origin. Described as “a unique intersection, merging the cinematic formality of Bollywood and geometric repetition of Islamic art,” Alam’s work has been featured in Vice, Village Voice, and The New York Times. He completed his graduate studies in Islamic art and philosophy at Harvard University. Alam is a 2024 Nawat Fes artist-in-residence in Morocco and NYSCA Composer/Compositions awardee at work on the installation project Meter & Light.

Heesoo Kwon is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. Positioning herself as an artist, activist, archivist, anthropologist, and religious figure, Kwon builds feminist utopias in the digital realm that liberate one from personal, familial, and historical trauma rooted in patriarchy. Central to her practice and substantial bodies of work is Leymusoom, an autobiographical feminist religion she initiated in 2017 as a form of personal resistance against misogyny and an ever-evolving framework for investigating her family histories. Kwon utilizes technologies such as digital archiving, 3D scanning, and animation as her ritualistic and shamanistic tools to regenerate her woman ancestors’ lives without constraints of time and space, and to queer her past, present, and utopian dreams.

Sunnie Liu is an interdisciplinary artist creating diasporic biomythography, critical fabulation, and liberation evangelism. Rooting practice in community, Sunnie co-founded digital organizing cooperative Xīn Shēng | 心声Project, co-edits Divine zine, and is half of artist collective Parallax with Malaika Temba. Born in rural China and raised in Texas, Sunnie holds degrees in Studio Art and History from Yale University. Their work has been featured by Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Asian American Arts Alliance, Think!Chinatown, BLUEorange, POV on PBS, Yale Norfolk School of Art, Foundation House, Bandung Residency, and NYU Press.

About the Exhibition
Devoted was curated by Danielle Wu (Asian American Arts Alliance) and is on view at EFA Project Space from May 9, 2024 – June 4, 2024. By following the link between religion and Asian American identity, the exhibition confronts religious belief as a central yet under-acknowledged role in racial othering in the United States. For more information about the exhibition, please visit A4’s website.