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<\/p>\nROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 May marks Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To celebrate and honor the community, Asian artists in Rochester are highlighting AAPI stories through a month-long exhibit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I make art about the present moment, I think, I have to go back to my roots,\u201d artist and immigrant Thao Le Thanh said.<\/p>\n
Art can draw discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to do art that feel honest,\u201d Le Thanh said. \u201cTo where I am in life. I always loved drawing. I think, it’s definitely in my family because a lot of folks in my family, [like] my uncle, my cousin, loved to draw. And growing up, I loved writing, and I love drawing. I made comics with my brother. And I just wanted to keep doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Le Thanh, their work also shares a story. Facing isolation,\u00a0Le Thanh was from one of the only Vietnamese families, at the time, in their town.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother is, was one of the Vietnamese boat people,\u201d Le Thanh said. \u201cShe left Vietnam during the war and she lived in a refugee camp in Malaysia. And then the Italian Navy brought my mom and the rest of her family, my family, to Italy. There’s a lot of generational trauma that needs healing. I think, you know, my parents in particular didn’t really want to talk about Vietnam. There wasn’t a lot of representation and the representation was often skewed by white supremacy lenses. And I think that these folks are missing a piece of the puzzle. So, having the possibility to represent yourself, it’s clarifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using art as a form of healing and connecting, Thao Le Thanh shares art in spaces like \u201cRed: An Asian American and Pacific Islander Artist exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAsian American artists are really broad spectrum of art and that we do lots of different kinds of things,\u201d exhibition curator Julie Chen said. \u201cI am an artist myself, I am interdisciplinary, I do a lot of different things and I’ve met a lot of Asian American artists coming from a lot of different backgrounds, and they also do a lot of different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
From paintings, poems and even photography.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in Vietnam and adopted and raised in Connecticut,\u201d photographer Jess Connelly-Cohen said. \u201cSo, I’ve been going back since I was like eight years old every other year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photographing her trips in a world where she may have grown up in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s actually part of like a magazine, a little photo book magazine that I made when I came back from this trip, all about my photos from there and how I kind of got more in touch with my identity,\u201d Cohen said.<\/p>\n
They are finding identity through art, but also a community.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of different groups of people with a lot of different histories, so we all have these different pathways of coming here and becoming Asian,\u201d Chen said. \u201cWhether folks immigrated right here or there are generations they’ve been here for generations or whether, they were adopted. We are not just like one type of person that they’re we have lots of different stories in different, pathways becoming who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closing event for “Red\u201d is scheduled for May 29 from 6-8 p.m., featuring a pop-up market with its artists from the showcase at the AltBar in Rochester.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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