Being & Becoming / Asian in America: Aperture 251

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This issue explores the myriad ways in which Asian American image makers have negotiated the tension between being seen and unseen as strategies of survival, play, and reclamation, from the pursuit of anonymity or effacement during times of exclusion to practices of self-fashioning and commemoration within communities.

Just as the term Asian American covers an incredible diversity of people from different geographic origins, classes, cultures, and historical experiences, there is no one approach to Asian American photography. This summer edition of Aperturehighlights the photographers and writers who are telling new stories about what it means to be Asian in America. They explore areas of hope and connection alongside doubt, uncertainty, and trauma across generations. Through text and image, they take part in a project of reclaiming agency and humanity while charting an evolution of Asian American identities.

Author Bio

Stephanie Hueon Tung is the Byrne Family Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum. Formerly serving as PEM Assistant Curator and then Associate Curator with a focus on photography, Tung was instrumental in shepherding the 2020 acquisition of approximately 1,600 photographs by artists with ties to East Asia. Tung served as the Assistant Curator on PEM 201920 exhibition A Lasting Memento: John Thomsons Photographs Along the River Min and recently co-curated Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China.