Willful Dialects considers spoken, visual, and felt languages and dialects through the lens of a selection of Asian-American and Asian Diaspora artists working in and around Boston. An anti-survey, this moment in time intends to refuse a monolithic descriptor of what it means to be Asian in America today.
The term “Asian-American” itself was coined in 1968 by Bay Area students and activists in part to foster camaraderie between ethnicities and reject the derogatory term “Oriental.” This concept of the Oriental as a fantasy constructed to maintain power dynamics was explored deeply in Edward Said’s seminal 1978 text Orientalism. Said noted that Orientalism is “willed human work.” Edward Said was a Palestinian-American writer whose work makes up some of the foundational texts of current Asian-American studies.
In the nonfiction book Willful Subjects, author Sara Ahmed also considers this willfulness, and the idea that, rather than a locale for penalization, difference can be a source of resilience. Willful Dialects continues this line of questioning, contextualizing the relationship between our wills and language’s ability to activate. The artists and artworks in this exhibition arguably specify their own dialects and dialectics of expression. Willful Dialects ponders these elastic potentialities of identity as a home where one can shape visual and auditory languages and thus experience.
Included artists:
Qais Assali
Lani Asunciòn
crystal bi
Yi Cynthia Chen
Ajinka Dekhane
Jen DeLuna
Feda Eid
Sara Elbashir
Lucy Kim
payal kumar
Hamed Noori
Loretta Park
Samnang Riebe
Sopheak Sam
IMAGINE aka Sneha Shrestha
Monica Srivastava
Joanna Tam
Vivian Tran
Ravinda D Wibowo
Yu-Wen Wu
Curated by Yi Cynthia Chen
Poster by Chen Luo
Presented in collaboration with No Call, No Show
On view: April 26, 2025 – May 24, 2025
Opening reception: Saturday April 26, 6 - 9 PM
Additional programming:
Mapping Asian American Workshop w/ Joanna Tam: Saturday May 3, 2 - 4 PM
Curator’s Talk w/ Yi Cynthia Chen: Sunday May 18, 1 - 2 PM
Closing Performance w/ Lani Asunciòn: Saturday May 24, 6 - 8 PM
PRESS
Yi Cynthia Chen on “Willful Dialects”
Mister Zine