First Look: After Hope: Videos of Resistance
Presented jointly by the Asian Art Museum and Center for Asian American Media (CAAM)
CAAMFest’s festival director, Masashi Niwano, sits down with Abby Chen, the museum’s senior associate curator and head of contemporary art, to talk about how the pandemic and changing social climate has impacted both organizations. Then Chen will present an exclusive preview of the museum’s upcoming video exhibition After Hope: Videos of Resistance. This program is part of CAAM’s First Look, which focuses on upcoming projects.
About the Exhibition
After Hope: Videos of Resistance investigates “hope” as an emotion that drives us to imagine, represent, and create new worlds — or simply survive the one we currently inhabit. With the far-reaching impact of COVID-19, hope has become especially critical. Often associated with naiveté and unrealizable solutions, hope can also be a driving force for real change. The prompt to think “after” hope addresses the complex ways hope affects our vision for the future and judgment of the past. What precedes hope, and what follows it? Bringing together a broad range of voices from across Asia and its diaspora, After Hope explores the nuances of hope through its expressions and legacies within contemporary art and activism.
After Hope: Videos of Resistance consists of a screening of more than 50 short, single-channel videos drawn from recommendations by artists, curators, and organizations across the world. The result is a six-hour looping chronicle of hope that is eclectic in nature, rather than unified by a single narrative.
After Hope: Videos of Resistance is organized by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. It is co-organized with Padma D. Maitland, assistant professor of architectural history and theory at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. It Support is provided by the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, Ministry of Culture of Taiwan.
