Asian artists in America:
"We need togetherness and community"
By SHANTIKA BHAT | MAY 17, 2021
May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month, and we spent time with three AAPI artists from the Maryland Institute College of Art to learn their stories, artistic influences, and thoughts about AAPI issues in the world today.
Artwork by Book Karnjankit
Artwork by Kiran Joan
Artwork by Yifan Luo
An Introduction to three artists
Book Karnjankit (She/They)
Book calls herself a cartoonist, illustrator, and a humorous comic book artist. She is from Bangkok, Thailand and is currently attending graduate school at MICA. Her journey as an artist wasn't easy as her parents didn’t support her plans at first and she studied architecture in undergrad.
She discovered her love for art when she was doodling in her free time and decided to pursue it. Her future plans are to own a shop where she sells her art. And stay in Baltimore because she believes that It has a great art scene and people are really kind, helpful, and caring. Something really cool about Book is that she loves birdwatching! Follow her on instagram: @koobta.art and her website: https://www.koobta.art/about.
“Since I started bird watching it kept me grounded and made me more focused on the present on where I am and keep me focused on my senses”
Kiran Joan (she/her)
Kiran calls herself an illustrator and does digital illustration and likes to work with abstract shapes and forms. She is in the graduate program at MICA studying illustration and after graduation wants to work in illustration as a freelancer. Kiran is from a city in Karnataka (South India) called Mangalore. “It has a very unique culture that I haven't seen anywhere else. I draw a lot of women and a sense of community in my art which comes from my exposure back at home.” said Kiran Her favorite art is her work called “Stories of Love” which is -aimed to be a series of animations based on real life stories of women who experience struggles with the rules of religion and how they navigate and have resilience in themselves.
In her part time, she has been interested these days about the rules in different religions and how people have faced issues about religion and how they came out of it. She likes to study meditation and manifestation. Follow her on instagram: @kiran.joan and her website: https://kiranjoan.com
“Manifestation is like a fun game to play with regarding your life’s hopes and dreams”
Yifan Luo (She/her)
Yifan calls herself a visual storyteller, illustrator, and curator of memories. “The materials laying around the house. The type of things my parents had were brush pens when they would practice Chinese calligraphy and that would help me mess around with art as a child” said Yifan. She is from Sichuan province in China but moved to Belgium for sometime and then immigrated to the U.S when she was 9 years old.
Her art journey wasn’t a straight path before becoming a graduate student at MICA, Yifan had over 10 years of work experience at startups and other jobs which helped her with communication, marketing, and writing for graphics for companies she cared about. However, her root interest took her back to illustration and she pursued graduate school. Her future plans are to find work that enables her to tell different stories and hopefully make the world a better place. Looking to continue freelance work and making that more robust. She is really passionate about sustainability and the environment. She is vegan because it is her way to minimize her harm on the planet and she has fun learning how to cook different cuisines.
Her instagram: @yifanluoart and her website: www.yifanluo.com
“I’m a big hype person. If I really get excited about something I want the whole world to know about it and really like to do a deep dive into my curiosity. Love to learn and improve myself.”
Responding to a Rise in Asian Hate Crimes
Anti-Asian sentiment has been seen all over the world and especially in America these past few years. There was a more than 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crime reports to police in the first quarter of 2021 according to a report from Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. There have been devastating attacks on asian people that makes a lot of Asians fear for their and their loved ones lives.
“It made me feel overall cautious and afraid," said Yifan. "I had this dull anxiety and anticipation of violence in the back of my mind that I never had before. Thinking about my grandparents in the south and older immigrant communities and the violence towards them made my anxiety grow.”
Yifan made a visual representation of how she felt about the recent attacks in her piece called Masked. However, Yifan also felt that it was great seeing many Asian people and others stand up for themselves.
Many of these xenophobic sentiments come from uneducation and many people were suggesting that a way to prevent hate to not only asians but other people is to start educating about different cultures.
“We need to find a way to educate people and not having anyone feeling like they are entitled to make any judgement towards other people who are different from themselves,” said Book
Another thought is there needs to be more unity and community between people. Once people see difference and create divide it really causes a barrier between groups of people which can lead to violence.
“What I think is lacking here is the sense of community because there is such a divide in us that causes a lot of bad things to happen.We need…togetherness and community that might help some people come together,” said Kiran.
Artwork by Kiran Joan
Highlighting Different Asian Heritages and Experiences in America
Asia is filled with thousands of cultures from different foods, architecture, languages, religions, and more. A lot of people often assume and lump different countries together however, they are all so diverse which is what makes Asian people so unique.
India is a country which is a great example of diversity because each individual state and within the state has different languages, foods, religion, and traditions.
Kiran said, “A lot of people associate Hindi with being the only language in India and assume that everyone speaks it. However, even in the city I grew up in, people speak different languages like Kannada, Konkani, Tulu, and more. So I wish people would realize the immense depth and diversity of India”. India has 22 official languages and an incredible culture.
Growing up in America and being Asian is definitely not an easy thing especially when people don’t understand your culture. A very sad yet typical thing that happens to immigrant kids is when they bring their cultural foods to lunch and oftentimes kids would make fun of them (happened to me).
“I wish parents would teach their children about different foods and expose them early on,” said Yifan. “so if they see someone who is eating food that might seem strange to them they won't attack the kids with a foriegn food. We should be more welcoming and tolerant of others.”
Political unrest back in Book’s home country of Thailand has also impacted her experience studying abroad a lot. The growing pro-democracy movement has been calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha - the former army chief who seized power in a 2014 coup and was later appointed as premier after controversial elections last year. For Book, many of the people from her culture she looked up to became problematic.
“I wish people were more educated about what is going on in places like Thailand and Myanmar and how the fight for democracy is so important,” said Book. Please read more about it here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54542252
Learning about different cultures can help with a lot of issues but also it can be fun! Kiran has been interested in cooking korean food lately as a way to learn more about Korea. Book would like to learn more about Indonesia as it is a fellow southeast asian country. Yifan has always been exploring but a particular group she is interested in learning about is the ethnic Asians in Russia.
A lot that comes with culture is the food, holidays, and memories. For Kiran, this dish comes out for the Festival of Nativity which she celebrates. This is called Mangalorean Vorn, the popular term, Payasam. Around this time is the harvest so they take this sweet dish and add seeds from the harvest.
In China the Mid Summer Autumn festival is an extremely popular holiday that celebrates the end of autumn harvest. The food that is most associated with this is mooncakes and Yifan remembers the times her mom used to make it. Image Credit: Today.com
This dish is called ไข่พะโล้ Kai pa lo and this is Book’s favorite meal her mom used to make her. This would always make her so happy when she came back from school and this would be served to her. She thinks that people should try more of the local and traditional food of Thailand.
Image Credit: www.hot-thai-kitchen.com
Life as a Female Asian Artist
Often being a minority in any workforce can be intimidating and lead to hardships. However, the art field seems to be improving in their representation of female asian artists.
“There's actually a lot of Asian American artists,” said Yifan. “However If you look at the bookstore and see children's books for example the illustrators are primarily by non asian names. There are a lot of male illustrators that get this platform. This doesn’t represent the pool of talent out there so I would appreciate more representation.”
The way to appreciate more asian artists is to try to consume more of their work. Kiran is inspired by artists like Pushpamala N, a visual artist, Queer Wang an animator that explores mental health and Jasjyot Sign Hans, who inspired Kiran to go to the graduate program at MICA. Yifan is inspired by author Cathy Park Yong, artist Chanel Miller, and actor Steven Yeun. Book is inspired by Kathy Lam who does similar humorous comics. Please feel free to check out who inspired these asian artists so that you could broaden your scope of Asian figures.
Artwork by Book Karnjankit
Resources and Links
The situation in many places around the world are not looking great but there are ways that you can help and educate yourself.
India is having an oxygen shortage during the world’s biggest spike of COVID-19
COVID Relief links for India.
Stop Asian Hate links-
“People who are helping with the COVID situation back in India inspire me.”