bodies in flight

pray ting ai fly is screening next weekend in Santa Cruz:

the UCSC Women of Color in Conflict and Collaboration Research Cluster is excited to present:

The 14th Annual Women of Color Film and Video Festival

bodies in flight: migration and transit

a space for films, videos, spoken word, music, dialogue, and activist vision

Friday March 14th and Saturday March 15th
@ the Kresge College Town Hall

Join us as we bring together cultural productions by U.S.-based women of color and women internationally that speak to issues of migration, dislocation, and displacement. Featured filmmakers include: Sonali Gulati, Jolie Harris, Nanobah Becker, Claudia Mercado, Dee Rees, yaya raiz, Dolissa Medina, monica enriquez-enriquez, Vanessa Huang, Nao Bustamante, Elissa Moon, Emiliana Reynoso, Veronica Majano, Osa Hidalgo de la Riva and Mujeres y Cultura Subterranea from Mexico City. Plus one program curated by the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project based in San Francisco.

with music by: Erica Nalani and from La Havana, Cuba, Las Krudas Cubensi a Hip Hop and Spoken Word three women collective. Friday March 14th at the Hide Gallery 9pm.

spoken word by: UCSC spoken word collectives SIN and FLOW, Oakland youth spoken word troupe IGO, and Bay Area performance artist Aimee Suzara. MCs Angela Carroll, Tannia Esparza, Miki Foster and Laila Shereen Sakr. Saturday March 15th at 6pm.

APAture: ksw press reading & film and video night

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, 7 - 9pm
Bunsen Burnt: KSW Press Reading & Chapbook Release
The Actors Center of San Francisco
180 Capp St. @17th St., 2nd floor
$10-20 sliding scale ($8-$20 for KSW members) Join us for an evening of literary readings and the launch of a new chapbook, Bunsen Burnt, from KSW Press. Featuring readings by Neelanjana Banerjee, Susanna Kwan, Vanessa Huang, Sita K. Bhaumik, and others.

Neelanjana Banerjee
Oscar Bermeo
Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik
Vanessa Huang
Susanna Kwan
Margaret Rhee

View artist bios

Buy Tickets at manja.org

Thursday, September 27, 2007, 8pm
Film and Video Night
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street, San Francisco
$10-20 sliding scale ($8-$20 for KSW members)
Featured Film Artist: Emiko Omori

Join us for an evening of film and video screenings by Bay Area API filmmakers, including featured artist Emiko Omori, at the Victoria Theatre.

John Fong, Since You’ve Been Ong
Yasmine Gomez, Consumed
Vanessa Huang, pray ting ai fly
Jeffrey Lei, Dick Ho: Asian Male Porn Star
Minette Mangahas, Kiss My Hyphen
Nooshin Navidi, Young Republic
Danilo Parra, music video for Odessa Chen’s Kill the lights
Melanie Veloria, My Bad by Kapakahi
Wilson Wong, My Dad the Hairstylist

View artist bios

Buy Tickets at manja.org

 

SF8 fundraiser

My sister’s work is in a show next weekend:

REVOLUTIONARY ART:
New work from the SF Print Collective with presentation and book
signing with artist Emory Douglas

ONE DAY ONLY - Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Exhibit 4 - 7 pm, Emory Douglas @ 5 pm
Located at the Center for Political Education, 522 Valencia Street at 16th St.

An exhibition of posters from the San Francisco Print Collective’s
Silkscreen Postermaking workshop.

We will feature a talk, slideshow and Q&A with former minister of
culture for the Black Panther Party Emory Douglas, signing his new
book, Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas. This
event will also raise funds to Free the San Francisco-8, eight former
Black Panthers and community leaders arrested in January on 36-year
old charges, based on confessions extracted by torture.
http://www.freethesf8.org/

As a primer for public artists, SFPC’s Silkscreen Postermaking
workshop teaches students how to use the mass media for activist
organizing with a focus on guerrilla art, graphic design, and legal
defense. Participating artists include: Fiona Glas, Allison Lum,
Davis DeBard, Arla Ertz, Ellen Frances, Ly Mai Hoang, Serena Huang,
Stacy Kono, Harris Kornstein, John Lewis, Fernando Marti, Gabe
Martinez, Jennifer Miller, Nicole Rivera, Suzanne Shaffer, Melanie
Ann Tom, Amy Vanderwarker, Debra Walker, and David Shih-chun Wu.

$5-$100, sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Sangria, beer and non-alcoholic drinks and snacks!

Sponsored by the Center for Political Education and the SF Print
Collective. This space is not wheelchair accessible.

For more information, contact sfprintcollective [at] gmail.com or
center [at] politicaleducation.org
_______________________________________________________________________________

The SFPC is a printmaking collective that uses graphic art to support
social justice organizing. We make public art to challenge the mass
media and broadcast progressive politics directly to the
streets. For more info. or to get involved in the next silkscreen
postermaking class, contact sfpcprintclass [at] gmail.com or
http://www.sfprintcollective.com

Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to
CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:

http://www.freethesf8.org/donate.html

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8 [at] riseup.net

tongue to tongue

My film, pray ting ai fly, is part of an art show next month in LA:

Know Thyself (unsheathed) by Naya’Hri Suhalia

The Advocate and Gochis Galleries

9.7.07-9.29.07

Opening Reception: Friday September 7, 7-9 pm FREE

TONGUE TO TONGUE
Queer Woman & Gender Variant People of Color: A Group Exhibition

Featuring artwork by:

Nuria Bolaños, Jaguar Busuego,
Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, Yuki Eto, Ana
Fernandez, Lydia Elizabeth Godoy, Vanessa
Huang, Verlena Johnson, Alma Lopez, Sara
Margarita, Dalila Paola Mendez, Mahyar Nili,
Genevieve Erin O’Brien, Noni Olabisi, Christine
Pan, Jeannel Phillips, Laura Placencia, Suyapa
G. Portillo, Glynnis Reed, Gen Roldan,
and Naya’Hri Suhalia

Fore more information, call 323/860-7337 or email artprograms@lagaycenter.org.

Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 6-10 pm

Saturdays 9 am-5 pm

Admission: FREE

***

TONGUE TO TONGUE
Provoking Critical Dialogues Among Queer
Women of Color
www.tonguetotongue.org
September 7,8,9, 2007

Tongue to Tongue is produced by and for queer-,
lesbian-, bisexual women, genderqueer,
transgender & gender non-conforming people of
color, with key sponsorships from our allies in
the community.

Together with independent educators, artists,
academics & community activists we will address
questions of race, poverty, sexuality, gender,
violence & health as well as legal, civil & human
rights. Through these dialogues we will develop a
platform for action to organize a movement to
change the landscape for LGBTQI people in
Los Angeles and beyond.

Tongue to Tongue explicitly acknowledges and
honors transgender, genderqueer, and gender
non-conforming experiences of womanhood
that have historically been silenced in women-
oriented spaces.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
6-9:30pm: Art Exhibit: Opening & Reception

With artwork by: Nuria Bolaños, Jaguar Busuego,
Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, Yuki Eto, Ana
Fernandez, Lydia Elizabeth Godoy, Vanessa
Huang, Verlena Johnson, Alma Lopez, Sara
Margarita, Dalila Paola Mendez, Mahyar Nili,
Genevieve Erin O’Brien, Noni Olabisi, Christine
Pan, Jeannel Phillips, Laura Placencia, Suyapa
G. Portillo, Glynnis Reed, Gen Roldan,
and Naya’Hri Suhalia

Featuring DJ Nova Jade and performances by
Wildflower and tatiana de la tierra

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8

9am-6pm: Workshops, Films,
Keynote Speaker: Laura Harris
(details will be posted on our website)

7-9:30pm Performances by: Ryka Aoki de la Cruz,
D’Lo, Traeh, Ami Mattison, Jennifer Jiries,
chueh jun-fung, and Monica Palacios

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

10am-4pm: Keynote Speaker: Alice Y. Hom,
Breakout Groups
Closing

*Program still subject to change*
Visit www.tonguetotongue.org for registration &
program information.

Registration $30
Saturday only: $20 (includes evening performances)
No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

LOCATION:
Gay & Lesbian Center’s Village @ Ed Gould Plaza
1125 North McCadden Place
Los Angeles, CA 90038

what to the prisoner is the fourth of july?

As today’s the Fourth of July, I wanted to share Hakim’s reflections from prison two years ago on what this day means to her: aligning herself with Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, she asserts that the legacies of the contradictions of Douglass’ 1852 “are still with us in our growing criminal justice system. In fact, the connections between the slavery of our past and our mass imprisonment practices of today are not discreet once we understand history.” Read the whole piece here.

Also, check out Jeremy Bearer-Friend’s thoughts on the recent media craze re Paris Hilton focusing on how “rich, white people are treated differently by California law enforcement than the rest of us”: while many of us know this and are rightfully outraged, “most commentators called for an expansion of the reach of the jail, rather than questioning the jail itself” — but “the reaction to her story is not to lock up everyone for longer and prevent addicts from accessing treatment. The solution is to shut down [a] system that has devastated communities of color.”

For those of you in the Bay Area, people in women’s prisons, Justice Now, and digital media artist Sharon Daniel are having an art opening at Rock Paper Scissors this Friday. The exhibit is Public Secrets — from Daniel’s artist statement:

There are secrets that are kept from the public and then there are “public secrets” - secrets that the public chooses to keep safe from itself, like the troubling “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The trick to the public secret is in knowing what not to know. This is the most powerful form of social knowledge. Such shared secrets sustain social and political institutions. The injustices of the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the Prison Industrial Complex are “public secrets.”

The show will be up this whole month. Come check it out and join us for a closing celebration on July 27 from 7-9 pm at 2278 Telegraph Ave in Oakland.

loving in the war years

Below is my talk for opening night of the Queer Women of Color Film Festival as a community partner for Justice Now:

 

My name is Vanessa Huang and I’m the campaign director for Justice Now. We’re based in Oakland and we partner women in prison with communities outside, like us here tonight, to end all forms of violence against women and to stop imprisonment.

 

As a queer Chinese-American daughter of immigrants born and raised mostly here in the U.S., I locate my story and the story of mi familia along a spectrum of migration and want to acknowledge the history of the forced and coerced migration connected to this land through colonialism and slavery.

 

The work that Justice Now does continues to ask critical questions about the role of prisons along this spectrum in removing generations of queer and trans women of color, and our friends and family, from our communities: How are prisons continuing to destroy our communities’ right to family? How are they acting as agents of reproductive oppression? What will be the impact on our communities now that the California Legislature has just rolled through, against our will, the single largest prison construction deal in U.S. history? And perhaps most importantly, what work must we do in this moment — within ourselves, with each other, and beyond — to challenge this?

 

As we witness tonight and throughout the weekend remarkable stories of courage and love in times of war, stories made by and for our communities, I invite you all to tap into our collective  courage to imagine the world we need to create in order for our communities to truly thrive.

 

We need to summon the courage to love each other when our communities are so fractured because of La Migra and the cops; the courage to create our own families; the courage to say ya basta when facing the enormous harm enacted against and within our communities — and to work together to create responses to the harms we face that don’t build up the very system that’s tearing us apart.

 

Let’s love ourselves enough to tap into the courage of our most powerful imagination, and take it upon ourselves and with each other to imagine and create a safe, compassionate world without prisons.

pray ting ai fly

My experimental short, pray ting ai fly, is premiering here this June:

3RD ANNUAL QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR FILM FESTIVAL
Presented by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project
(QWOCMAP)

June 8 to 10, 2007
Brava Theater, SF

32 brand new films burst on screen in 4 film programs
that paint the vivid, provocative, and kaleidoscopic
stories of queer women of color. From the luminous
romance between two queer Asian women to the
dynamic portraits of immigrant Latina lesbians to the
vibrant humor of Black lesbians translating slang,
these films infuse our lives with hilarity and hope.

Friday, June 8
7pm: LOVING IN THE WAR YEARS

Saturday, June 9 *Festival Focus*
3pm: FEATURED PANEL
4:30pm: COCKTAIL FUNDRAISER
7pm: REELS OF RESISTANCE - Queer Black Women’s Films

Sunday, June 10
3pm: COMPASSIONATE OUTBURSTS – Documentary Showcase
7pm: INFINITE BEAUTY: STORIES OF LOVE

4 Film Screenings: FREE
Featured Panel: $15
Cocktail Fundraiser: $35

VENUE
Brava Theater
2781 24th Street, San Francisco

For more information:
www.QWOCMAP.org
events@qwocmap.org
415-752-0868

Friday, June 8
7pm: LOVING IN THE WAR YEARS (FREE)

These striking shorts by queer women of color blend
the contrasting hues of immigration, motherhood and
courage into a portrait of love as a political act.
Curated by Mónica Enríquez and Roiya Zara Said.
Followed by Q&A Panel with Filmmakers.

MANIFESTING OUR DESTINY (Claudia Gomez-Arteaga, 2006)
BORDERLESS (Min Sook Lee, 2006)
BIENVENIDA (Yaya Raiz, 2007)
GRRRLY GIRL (Lori Rillera, 2002)
SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN (Charlotte Young Bowens, 2007)
A LETTER TO YOU (Kawana Bullock, 2004)
ACHEIVEMENTS OF EXILE (Sara Zia Ebrahimi, 2005)
ESCRITO (Monica Enriquez, 2007)
LADY OF MOTION (Claudia A. Mercado, 2002)
Program: 104 minutes

** FESTIVAL FOCUS **

Saturday, June 9
3pm: FEATURED PANEL ($15)

“Representations of Queer Black Women in the Media”
Moderated by Jewelle Gomez and T. Kebo Drew

PANELISTS
Cheryl Dunye – Watermelon Woman, Stranger Inside
Shari Frilot – Sundance Film Festival Programmer
Tina Mabry – Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan

Saturday, June 9
4:30pm: COCKTAIL FUNDRAISER with Guest Panelists ($35)

Saturday, June 9
7pm: REELS OF RESISTANCE - Queer Black Women’s Films (FREE)

Sometimes humorous and tender, always courageous,
these evocative films paint the vibrant and kaleidoscopic
experiences of queer Black women and infuse our lives
with a spectrum of hilarity, hope and meaning.
Followed by Q&A Panel with Filmmakers.

All works created through Queer Women of Color Media
Arts Project (QWOCMAP), founded by Executive Director
& award-winning filmmaker Madeleine Lim.

ERZULIE’S TEARS (Mary Ann Brooks, 2007)
CHILD OF GOD (Kisha Montgomery, 2006)
NEED TO TALK (Jackie Loville, 2006)
ACTS OF LOVE (Crystal John, 2007)
60 YEARS OF THE SAME (Jolie Harris, 2007)
PRACTICE MAKES… (Brenda Williams, 2006)
WALLOW (Sarah Beth Harris, 2006)
THE SAINT (Erin Wood, 2007)
FLOWER FOKES (Belinda Sullivan, 2007)
SLANG IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT (Letesa Bruce, 2007)
Program: 80 minutes

Sunday, June 10
3pm: COMPASSIONATE OUTBURSTS – Documentary Showcase (FREE)

From the dappled canvas of the military’s influence on
fashion to the sepia-tinted nostalgia of Midwestern
cornfields to the bold impact of the death penalty,
these thought-provoking films are a rallying call for
social change! Followed by Q&A Panel with Filmmakers.

All works created through Queer Women of Color Media
Arts Project (QWOCMAP), founded by Executive Director
& award-winning filmmaker Madeleine Lim.

BOON KHUN (Virada Chatikul, 2006)
LOCAL GROWN CORN (Mel Chen, 2007)
ONE MORE DAY (Cecilla Madrigal, 2006)
PRAY TING AI FLY (Vanessa Huang, 2007)
PUBLIC OUTBURSTS (Alyssa Contreras, 2006)
BODY IMAGE (Gabrielle Sims, 2007)
FASHION RESISTANCE TO MILITARISM (Kimberly Alvarenga, 2006)
AGAINST OUR BETTER NATURE (Kenya Briggs, 2006)
THAT’S WHY I HATE FEMALES (Vassilisa Johri, 2007)
Program: 100 minutes

Sunday, June 10
7pm: INFINITE BEAUTY: STORIES OF LOVE (FREE)

From the luminous romance between two queer Asian
women to the twinkle of a grandmother performing
burlesque to the bright reflections of queer families,
these films will move you with their infinite beauty!
Followed by Q&A Panel with Filmmakers.

All works created through Queer Women of Color Media
Arts Project (QWOCMAP), founded by Executive Director
& award-winning filmmaker Madeleine Lim.

TO TRANSGRESS (Maya Santos, 2006)
INFINITE BREATH (Christine Liang, 2006)
ELEVEN (Arwyn Moore, 2006)
PASALIG / FAITH (Maiana Minahal, 2007)
LETTING GO OF AN ATTACHMENT (Joy Lam, 2006)
WHO IS HE? (Liliana Hueso, 2006)
LETTER OF INTENT (Cherisma Feril, 2007)
ADIOS BABA (Adriana Gordon, 2006)
FATHER’S DAY (Marianne Jensen, 2006)
IT TAKES A VILLAGE… (Kiki Zerrudo, 2007)
LAS MAÑANITAS (Celestina Pearl, 2007)
Program: 92 minutes

sistas tellin’ it like it is

I’ve got a short film screening in a few weeks at a fundraiser for Third World Majority, a media justice org that recently hosted a weekend digital storytelling training for local women, trans and genderqueer organizers of color.

Here’s the info:

Third World Majority
proudly presents

Sistas Tellin’ It Like It Is!

Community Screening and Fundraiser
Friday * October 20, 2006 * 7 pm
YWCA * 1515 Webster Street * Oakland, CA 94612
$5-10 (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Performances by:
Roopa Singh * Dalit Diva * Katie Joaquin * NaR * and more!

Participating Organizations:
SFWAR * Justice Now * Gabriela Network * Youth Media Council
Youth Together * Center for Third World Organizing
Lyric * KPFA Radio * Okinawa Peace Fighters * Fierce * Shimtuh