PREJUDICE IS A DISEASE

MOMO: Welcome! I’m so excited to be here and talk with my best friend and collaborator today about our photo project Prejudice is a Disease. We’ll be asking each other a few questions first about the project. If you want to share any thoughts or even your own story feel free to put it up in the chat so we can pull you up or have Dom read your comments and questions.

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MEL: Let’s first do a vibe check. How are you doing Momo? 

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MOMO: How are you doing Mel?

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MOMO: We want to acknowledge that these times are challenging for everyone.  With COVID-19, incidences of xenophobia and racism have increased exponentially. Yellow Peril, the idea that Asians are diseased and dangerous, isn’t a new concept due to a history spanning nearly almost 400 years. Asians across the diaspora are dealing with fear of being assaulted and harassed. We need solidarity and support now more than ever. 

 

MEL: But we’re out here, we’re with you and we’re fighting this. Before we start, we want to direct y’all to an amazing resource called StopDiscriminasian.org. On this site, you can report incidences of racism and find resources to understand what is happening and why. While we wish we could have all the answers when it comes to this globalized issue, we don’t. 

 

MC - to pin Momo’s Screen First

 

MOMO: Let’s start the Q & A on Prejudice is a Disease.

 

Q & A

 

(Q) MEL to MOMO: What inspired you to do this project? Why did you want to collaborate with me on this?

 

(A) MOMO: I saw that Asians wearing masks were made out to be the poster child of this Pandemic. Any level of anonymity or face/head covering is perceived as mischievous or ominous. It's alarming to most Americans.

Aside from being the best portrait photographer in Boston, I knew that Mel would be the perfect person to head this project with. She shares a lot of the Asian American experiences that I’ve had, and Mel would also be the unique eye that would be capable of capturing my perspective and ideas.

 

(Q) MEL to MOMO: While we were shooting this together at South Station, a white male shouted at us that your mask wouldn’t save your health. How did that make you feel, and how are you processing that information today?

 

(A): MOMO: 

 

(Q) MOMO to MEL: When an artist reaches out to you to do a collaboration that is political in nature, what’s your decision-making process?

 

(A) MEL: I think in the past couple of years I’ve put a lot of work into understanding my own racial identity as a Cambodian American and trying to figure out how that fits into my work as an artist. An amazing artist friend of mine, Chanel Thervil (I highly recommend you check out her work!), said that as an artist of color - she doesn’t need to go deep to find substance in her work. Who she is, JUST as she is, is the substance. She’s making a statement by being out here, making her art and being an educator in her community. 

And as I keep collaborating specifically with other artists of color, I’m leaning into that idea. I’m realizing that everything I do is going to be political in some nature because of the intersections of my identity and the intersections of the identities of people I work with. I was so down to do this with you because it was so timely with what was happening in the world, and I felt I could see myself in this work so clearly. As a fellow Asian lady, I felt all the themes you were going for was what was already in my heart.

 

(Q) MOMO to MEL: Do you want to talk about your technique and color application during this shoot? What were some of the visual decisions you made?

 

(A) MEL: I absolutely love creating filmic, surreal colorscapes in all my work. I think color is an emotion and an energy. When you brought this idea up to me, I immediately thought of the concept of “Yellow Peril” as an aura. Like a Durian. To make that aura visible, I used yellow gels that I had recently purchased and held it in front of the lens to make you have this yellow glow. I felt that when I wear a mask out in public, there’s this radar going off in people’s minds - “She’s Asian! She’s Asian!” I really wanted to express this visually, so I used the gels to give you a beautiful glow. A healthy glow, we could say. LOL

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OPEN UP THE DISCUSSION FOR QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

 

CLOSING STATEMENTS / TAKEAWAYS

• Reference Resources

CODE SWITCH (PODCAST): Taking the microcosm example of how friendships work and apply that to communities. Making eye contact with your neighbors (not necessarily Asians) and just say hello and recognize each other. Get to know your community so that you can be a part of it.

MINOR FEELINGS (BOOK): Collective rage. While we can share our experiences as Asians, we also have to acknowledge the everyday pain and suffering of black and brown folks in this country. There is serious anti-black anti-brown racism in East Asian culture, and that’s a problem. It’s not enough to have us all acknowledge that, too. We need to work together and form solidarity between all minorities that are damaged by white supremacy. We have to ban together to move forward. Turn anger into fuel.

• Recognizing privileges