It’s a very personal—yet typical—experience to come out to your family as LGBT. Mengwen Cao had the procedure in 2016, making a video to show their parents on FaceTime, recording the call, and afterwards transforming the tape into an artwork titled Here We Are. The call concludes with the artist’s father saying, “We can accept it,” while Cao and the spectator eagerly anticipate the parents’ reaction. “To be honest though, we still have traditional notions.” Before the image becomes black, Cao’s mother continues, “if in the future you see a man you like, that will be great.”
The piece was sort of a beginning point for Cao, who was born in Hangzhou, China, and created it while studying at the International Centre of Photography in New York, where they are currently living. Their latter works blend photography with the realm of art. Cao conducted interviews with and took pictures of East and Southeast Asians who were adopted by white American families for their project “I Stand Between” (2017–18). I Stand Between deals with race while Here We Are addresses the emotional gap brought on by sexuality. Cao’s topics frequently show up in unassuming, everyday situations. Their photographs of gay and trans individuals of colour, as shown in “Liminal Space” (2017-ongoing), are softly focused and flecked with colour. Cao told me in an interview, “I came to see that the personal is extremely political, and by revealing your own tales from a really true place, it may connect people in ways that you cannot even understand.”
Cao maintained that representation isn’t everything, while being motivated by a desire to reflect marginalised views. According to the artist, a large portion of their reportage has “gravitated towards the things I care about the most in my artmaking: stories about how Asian communities live, how queer communities live, and how migrants live.” Their subjects include gentrification and various types of anti-Asian violence. Their customers have included NPR and the New York Times. More than just visibility is at stake in their work; Cao is aware from personal experience that marginalisation may take many forms. A wide spectrum of emotions and sensations, as well as narratives that call on the audience to perceive complexity, are what unite all of their work.
Source: Art in America
Pratiksha Shome
Pratiksha is an art enthusiast and writer.
