{"id":30301,"date":"2024-01-26T12:41:14","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T20:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/?p=30301"},"modified":"2024-01-26T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T20:53:46","slug":"senior-artist-in-residence-celebrates-hybridity-in-major-solo-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2024\/01\/26\/senior-artist-in-residence-celebrates-hybridity-in-major-solo-show","title":{"rendered":"Senior artist-in-residence celebrates hybridity in major solo show\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Performance art requires a specific time and place. It\u2019s an event, in and of itself. And each performance is a one-of-a-kind experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This, says Anida Yoeu Ali<\/a>, senior artist-in-residence at the 56勛圖厙\u2019s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences<\/a>, is part of what makes performance art special. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPerformance art can happen anywhere, anytime, by anybody,\u201d she added. \u201cYou don\u2019t need permission to do performance art. That\u2019s what I love about it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In her first solo exhibit at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, \u201cHybrid Skin, Mythical Presence,\u201d Ali will be again presenting and performing two of her iconic works \u2014 \u201cThe Buddhist Bug\u201d and \u201cThe Red Chador.\u201d Together, these two pieces represent 14 years of the Tacoma-based artist\u2019s career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSAM is thrilled to be working with Ali on this exhibition, which marks her SAM debut and the first solo show of a Cambodian American artist in SAM\u2019s history,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Carlos Diaz, curator of the exhibit, in a press release. \u201cIt\u2019s also the Seattle Asian Art Museum\u2019s first solo show for an artist since the museum reopened in 2020. It\u2019s very exciting that these important firsts for the museum center on such dynamic and compelling work that tackles such relevant themes including the hybrid nature of identity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In her latest exhibition, Ali explores her hybrid transnational identities, a recurring theme throughout much of her work.\u202fA first-generation Muslim Khmer woman, Ali was born in Cambodia and later raised in Chicago after her family was displaced by the Cambodian Genocide that occurred under the rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Ali now uses her work as a platform for social and political activism, she said it wasn\u2019t until college, where she learned about Asian American history, that she found her voice. \u201cAligning myself to that history and that knowledge helped me to break out of my shell,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her first foray into performing happened when she began writing poems to read aloud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause people gave me so much love and adoration, and really vibed with the things I said, it gave me the courage to keep going up on stage \u2014 and that\u2019s what really did it for me,\u201d she said. \u201cThat spark grew from there, and I began bridging the visual and the performing arts.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ali received her BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Equipped with a new medium and a means to explore her identity and her voice, Ali returned to Cambodia as a Fulbright scholar in 2011. During her residency in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, \u201cThe Buddhist Bug\u201d \u2014 a work in which Ali dons the body of a 100-meter saffron-colored creature \u2014 was born out of her investigation into displacement and identity within her own personal experience and those around her. <\/p>\n\n\n\nFinding her voice<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n