Kat Liu / Yellow Fantasy (Chicago)

 Yellow Fantasy (2018) by artist Kat Liu

Through the mediums of photography and video, Kat Liu explores her identity as a Taiwanese-Chinese American woman. Performing in front of the camera, she navigates racial and gender-based violence and stereotypes that have been inflicted on her. Her work addresses the complexities of the Asian American experience by concentrating on themes of body image, cultural assimilation, and fetishization.

Asian representation in the media or on-screen was nearly non-existent when Liu was growing up. When she did see some form of representation, it was made up of mockery and exoticization. 

In film, East Asian women fell into the Dragon Lady or China Doll tropes. The first is deceitful and domineering, while the second is submissive and passive. Though these tropes are on the opposite of two extremes, they share a common thread of hypersexual and objectified depictions.

The camera has so often misrepresented Asian women. In response to these misrepresentations, Liu uses the camera to take back ownership of these tropes in order to subvert the narrative of the trope itself. Adorning herself, Liu takes on familiar racialized constructs such as the role of the “perpetual foreigner.” Her goal is to call out and disrupt these notions in order to bring attention to stereotypes that endure.