Alternative Archiving: Micro Operas and Beyond – Alan Nakagawa with Umi Hsu and Amanda L. Andrei

Changing how archives function has become fundamental in the efforts for diversification/ decolonizing historical resources.

Artists have utilized the science of archiving by adopting the practice and transforming art making through building and documenting historical data.

Three artists will present their use of archival practice in developing work both personal and part of the API Diaspora.

These are alternatives to the orthodox fields of archiving while telling stories that may have otherwise been overlooked or denied.

Meet the Instructors

Alan Nakagawa (he/him) has been the Artist-in-Residence at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Getty Villa, Geth Archives at CalState Dominguez Hills and the University of Barcelona. The data and objects collected during his four year Artist-in-Residence at the Pasadena Buddhist Temple titled Invisible Tea House was accepted into the State of California Archives earlier this year. He is a member of the Oral History Association and the World Federation of Acoustic Ecology. Currently, he is the Artist-in-residence for Kaya Press and the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations Collection at the Gerth Archives CalState Dominguez Hills

Umi Hsu (they/them) was born in Taipei and moved to Virginia at age twelve.Hsu is a trans nonbinary sound artist, musician, and writer whose practice is driven by inquiries about sound and migratory communities. Working to create social change through sound, Hsu co-founded LA Listens, a community engagement project aboutLA’s changing sonic and social ecology; and mobile placemaking collective MovableParts. They also write songs and produce music about the melancholic postcolony inghost pop band Bitter Party.

Amanda L. Andrei (she/her) is a playwright, literary translator, theater critic, and community archivist residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history and societies from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she co-translates from Romanian to English with her father, Codin Andrei.