Truly Seen: The Value of Cultural Representation

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Representation matters. It’s powerful to see yourself in the media, images, and icons that surround you. The more you see yourself, the more likely you are to see diverse stories about who you can be. Read 5 AAPI artists' insights and reflections on how we can expand representation in every field, and what it means to be truly seen.

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Spring is Here

When I was little, my dad would tell me about what it was like to be a child during China's Great Famine. He told me that he would eat ants off the ground for a brief sensation of what food tasted like, and laugh because in America I didn't have to do that. He always served me first when he cooked, and I wondered if I could ever do that, if being grown-up meant feeding other people first.

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Art, an Ecosystem Indicator

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If we want to talk about an economy as an ecosystem, then consider the arts and humanities as an "indicator." The US arts industry is 88% white, 12% people of color, and almost entirely men regardless of race. Women of color represent half of one percent of arts representation. The arts and humanities are where culture-making happens. So is it much of a surprise that we struggle with a diverse business ecosystem, the same way we struggle with biodiversity in nature when the primary infrastructure is centered on supporting a monoculture lawn?

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Read more about the article Uncommon Ground
Solo show by Jenie Gao, Diane Endres Ballweg Gallery at Madison Central Library.

Uncommon Ground

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From personal to professional to political spaces, I have paid attention to disputes between people who plead for common ground yet gloss over perspectives and leave issues unresolved. I have wondered that if instead of common ground, we should advocate and claim space for identities and representations that are rare.

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Spiders, Feminism, and Unlearning Irrational Fears

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As a child, I was afraid of spiders. I was one of those girls who ran away at the sight of any creepy crawly bug that was not either a ladybug, butterfly, or roly poly. I didn't see the irony or hypocrisy of my fear, as a girl who got called boyish, called out for being too rough, too temperamental, too strong, too aggressive for my sex.

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