2009-2010 NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Fall 2009 Awarded a Vincent de Paul Professorship
In Sept 2009, I was inducted into the Society of Vincent de Paul as a career-long member.

Fall 2009 Awarded a 2009-2010 DePaul University Humanities Fellowship
War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art
I am currently working with Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor Asian American Studies San Francisco State University, on a book project and an exhibition on mixed race Asian American art. The show is scheduled to open at the Wing Luke Asian Museum Feb-July, 2012 and the DePaul Art Museum Fall 2012.

Description: War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art investigates the construction of mixed race/mixed heritage Asian American (or, controversially, “Hapa”) identity in the United States. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age in an era of “optional identity," War Baby/Love Child examines how, or even if, mixed Asian Americans are addressing their hybrid identities in their artwork.

Artists: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Cristiana Lei Rodriguez, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laurel Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford, Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Each year the Humanities Center supports a group of DePaul faculty with Faculty Fellowships. These fellowships provide partial reductions in teaching load and an undergraduate research assistant. Fellows engage in rich interdisciplinary conversations throughout the year, and work with the Center to plan a program that connects their work to the broader community.

Dec 2009-Jan 2010 Travelled to India
Indigo: New Works By Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina travelled to Vadodara, New Delhi, and Mumbai India. The preview exhibition was inaugurated by Maharaja Ranjitsinh Gaekwad and Maharani Shubhangini Raje Gaekwad at ABS Red Earth Gallery Baroda, Gujarat December 15-16, 2009. The show then went on to the India Habitat Centre New Delhi, December 22-28, 2009 where the exhibition was inaugurated by Mrs Vilasini Ramchandran Additional Secretary Expenditure Ministry of Finance, Government of India, New Delhi. The final stop in India was the Nehru Art Centre January 12-18, 2010 where the exhibition Chief Guest was India’s Member of Parliament Mrs. Supriya Sule.

Learn more about the exhibition and view the press.

On December 31, 2009, Laura Kina was an invited lecturer at the Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics in Vadodara, Gujarat India. Read a report on her lecture, “Diaspora on Devon Ave: Stitching South Asian/Jewish Intersections”.

Feb 2010 Launched the Diasporic Asian Arts Network
The Diasporic Asian Arts Network (DAAN) is pleased to announce that Laura Kina will be serving as the Midwest Representative for DAAN. Diasporic Asian Art Network (DAAN) is a newly created, informal network of scholars, curators, arts writers, and graduate students interested in Asian American art and art history. The purpose of this proposed network is to share ideas and information, both about our own projects and about the work of others in the United States and abroad, toward advancing new research, critical writing, and curatorial efforts involving modern and contemporary Asian American/Asian diasporic art and visual culture.

Visit DAAN: www.nyu-apastudies.org/research/DAAN/

For Midwest event listings and membership, contact Laura Kina lkinaaro@depaul.edu
All other DAAN inquiries, please email the co-organizers listed below:

Alexandra Chang, New York University, Asian/Pacific/American Institute, achang@nyu.edu

Margo Machida, Ph.D., University of Connecticut, Department of Art & Art History and Asian American Studies Institute, margo.machida@uconn.edu

March 2010 Joined the board of the MAViN Foundation
The MAViN Foundation is the nation's leading organization that helps build healthier communities by raising awareness about the experiences of mixed heritage peoples and families.

Our projects explore the experiences of mixed heritage people, transracial adoptees, interracial relationships, and multiracial families.
http://www.mavinfoundation.org/about/board.html

Racked up frequent flyer miles travelling for exhibitions and artist talks
In 2009-2010, my work was included in group shows in India (Red Earth Gallery in Vadodora, India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, Nehru Art Centre in Mumbai), Fullerton, CA (Cal State Fullerton), Los Angeles (Korean Cultural Center), Chicago (DePaul Art Museum), and Miami (Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts).

I was invited to give artists talks in India (Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics), San Francisco (de Young Museum), Fullerton, CA (Cal State Fullerton), Chicago (College Art Association, Northwestern University, DePaul University Cultural Center and Humanities Center, Biracial Family Network, Japanese American Service Committee), Austin, TX and Honolulu, HI (Association for Asian American Studies), and Oberlin, OH (Oberlin College).


April-May 2010 Laura Kina: A Many-Splendored Thing
The highlight of the year was an invitation from the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media to have a retrospective of my work from the past 15 years in conjunction with the 15th anniversary of the Asian American Showcase. The show was curated by Larry Lee.

A retrospective featuring over thirty selected paintings, drawings and textiles (1995-present) from her Refrigerator, Hapa Soap Opera, Loving, Aloha Dreams, and Devon Avenue Sampler series as well as some early and new works on exhibit for the first time. Kina’s art collectively embraces “ikigai” or the Japanese belief of “a sense of life worth living” and reflects her “postcolonial pop aesthetic” as a multiracial Okinawan Jewish artist/educator/scholar living in a South Asian Indian neighborhood in Chicago.

April 2nd - May 30th
Opening Night: Friday, April 2, 2010 6-8pm
Gene Siskel Film Center Gallery
164 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60601
www.faaim.org/visual
www.siskelfilmcenter.org

The show is free and open to the public. The Gene Siskel Film Center is open M-F after 5pm when the box office opens and after 2pm on Sat and Sunday.
For sales, press inquiries or to arrange a private tour during business hours (M-F 10-5), contact the curator Larry Lee at llee2@saic.edu or 773-263-9961

To view a video of the opening reception visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVzKo81b-Q

To view installation shots of the exhibition visit:
http://laurakina.blogspot.com/2010/04/opening-night-laura-kina-many.html

To view installation shots of the exhibition visit: http://laurakina.blogspot.com/2010/05/installation-shots-many-splendored.html

UPCOMING 2010-2011

Sept 2010 Laura Kina: Sugar
Set during Hawai’i’s territorial years, 1900-1959, before statehood, Laura Kina’s SUGAR series recall Kaidan ghost stories and features picture brides turned machete carrying sugar cane plantation field laborers. Her paintings focus on Okinawan immigrants to the big island of Hawaii. Drawing on oral history and family photographs from Nisei (2nd generation) and Sansei (3rd generation) Piihonua, HI community members as well as historic images, Kina’s paintings take us into to a beautiful yet grueling world of manual labor, cane field fires and flumes.
September 10 - October 28, 2010
Opening Reception: September 10th 6-9pm
Woman Made Gallery
685. N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60642
Tel: 312-738-0400
gallery@womanmade.org
www.womanmade.org


FIRST ANNUAL CRITICAL MIXED RACE STUDIES CONFERENCE
Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies
NOVEMBER 5-6, 2010 DEPAUL UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO, IL

las.depaul.edu/cmrs

Conference Description: Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies, the 1st annual Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, will be hosted at DePaul University in Chicago, November 4-7, 2010. The CMRS conference brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines nationwide. Recognizing that the diverse disciplines that have nurtured Mixed Race Studies have reached a watershed moment, the 2010 CMRS conference is devoted to the general theme Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies.

The conference will feature three plenary keynote speakers: Andrew Jolivette, Mary Beltran, Louie Gong as well as a closing performance by comedian Kate Rigg.
We have two solid days of panel, round table, and seminar sessions scheduled as well as two MAVIN Foundation organized workshops.

Critical Mixed Race Studies: CMRS is the transracial, transdisciplinary, and transnational critical analysis of the institutionalization of social, cultural, and political orders based on dominant conceptions of race. CMRS emphasizes the mutability of race and the porosity of racial boundaries in order to critique processes of racialization and social stratification based on race. CMRS addresses local and global systemic injustices rooted in systems of racialization.

The deadline for proposals has passed. Any changes to accepted proposals must be received by August 1, 2010.

All queries should be directed to the conference chairs:
cmrs@depaul.edu
773-325-4048

Join our group on Facebook "Critical Mixed Race Studies" and look for the event "Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference."

The conference is free and open to the public but we do ask that you preregister at:

The 2010 CMRS is organized by Camilla Fojas and Laura Kina (DePaul University) and Wei Ming Dariotis (San Francisco State University) and is sponsored by DePaul University Global Asian Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies and co-sponsored by the MAViN Foundation and DePaul's Cultural Center.

Indigo: New works by Shelly Jyoti and Laura Kina
January, 2011 (details TBA)
Opening Reception: (details TBA)
ArtXchange
512 1st Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98104
Tel: 206-839-0377
www.artxchange.org

May 2010 Laura Kina: Devon Avenue Sampler
I'm currently making new works to accompany the textile works I debuted in India in December 2009 in a two person-show "Indigo" for a forthcoming solo exhibition in Miami.
May, 2011 (details TBA)
Opening Reception: (details TBA)
Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts
2043 N. Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33127-4913
Tel: 305-576-1804
info@dlfinearts.com
www.dlfinearts.com