Artwork: Christine Sun Kim billboard, Words Shape Reality, 2018
Artist Christine Sun Kim’s (@chrissunkim) billboard for For Freedoms Words Shape Reality (2018) is particularly relevant in the wake of heightened awareness of crimes and discrimination against Asians in America (and around the world) since Covid. Kim reposted an image of this billboard and this comment on IG of her life experience as a deaf Asian American:
“i grew up in an immigrant household and attended predominantly white deaf programs. i was taught that my asian american identity does not equal my deaf identity and should remain in the background. it took me years and years to recognize how erased our asian american experience is, let alone asian american deaf. the feeling of being unimportant still remains in me to this day and that is called a trauma. i grew up dealing with both casual and clear racism from classmates, neighbors, teachers, interpreters, church people, strangers, and even friends. back then, i didnt have the discourse (and social media) to justify nor explain what the fuck was going on, so instead i buried the pain and let my experiences fade into obscurity. because of white supremacy, the system is designed to socially condition us to think that asian americans have the closest proximity to whiteness (aka model minority) and how our experience should be understood compared to the black experience. the closer we are to whiteness, the more invisible we become. but of course, its all bullshit and very much part of how oppression operates. i'd like to revisit the billboard i designed for @forfreedoms in 2018, which was based on my two charcoal drawings from 2017. it shows how words can easily shape our reality. its the kind of reality that has resulted in the deaths of vincent chin, vichar ratanapakdee, christian hall, soon chung park, hyun jung grant, suncha kim, yong yue, delaina ashley yaun, paul andre michels, xiaojie tan, daoyou feng and many many more. #stopasianhate”