SAN FRANCISCO — The day before the WhatsApp acquisition was announced, I was just using the app. It’s one of many mobile messaging platforms I use, along with Viber, Line, and WeChat. I used WhatsApp to chat with friends as far away and diverse as Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Western Europe, and with all the other short-messaging apps, I’m regularly chatting with a good chunk of the world.
Author Archives: An Xiao
Artist An Xiao (aka An Xiao Mina) photographs, films, installs, performs and tweets and has shown her work in publications and galleries internationally. Find her online at @anxiaostudio and anxiaostudio.com.
Capturing Slow Portraits of People and Landscapes
Koyanisqaatsi, a debut collaboration between filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass, broke ground in so many ways in the 1980’s for exploring film as a poetic, rather than narrative or theatrical expression. Over ten years later, Reggio and Glass have come together to produce Visitors, another moving poem, at once visual and musical, without words or a clear narrative.
An Online Community for Young Poets
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry,” Emily Dickinson once wrote.
An Anthem For Uganda’s Oppressed Queer Community
This past December, Uganda’s Parliament passed an Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would extend criminalization of homosexuality to life in prison and up to seven years for advocacy work. Nkoyooyo Brian decided to respond with an anthem for the country’s LGBTQ community.
From Mapping Solar Potential to Mapping the American Empire
SAN FRANCISCO — According to Cliff Chen, a senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, if a solar power system were built in the American Southwest it would apparently only need to be 100 miles by 100 miles to provide enough energy to power the entire United States.
Using New Media to Shed Light on Old Art Narratives
The internet is a visual space, where virality comes most frequently to media rich in images, whether videos, animated GIFs or simple memes. Connecting these new forms of media with all the classic ways that human beings have told visual stories is a powerful way to reanimate them, sometimes literally, for the digital age.
A Coming-of-Age Graphic Novel Explores Gender and Identity
Flutter, Massachusetts-based writer Jennie Wood’s latest comic series, explores themes of gender and sexuality through science fiction.
Seeing the Elderly Through Children’s Eyes
What might children’s drawings look like in an internet age? Photographer Yoni Lefévre’s Grey Power series reimagines children’s drawings as photos.
A Community Considers Systemic Support of the Arts
ALBUQUERQUE — As arts communities across the nation work to develop long-term sustainability in the face of the shifting economy, getting people talking together seems like a good first step.
Sculptures of Light and Illusion
SAN FRANCISCO — In Stereo, an exhibition of new works by Bay Area-artist Chris Fraser at Highlight Gallery, plays with the ways our eyes perceive space.
Import, Export, Art, and Asia
SAN FRANCISCO — Import/Export, currently on show at the Asia Art Museum, looks at Asia’s impact on our everyday lives.
Kung Fu Grandmas in Kenya
Kung Fu Grandma, a new short documentary by London-based director Jeong-One Park, explores a group of elderly Kenyan women who have studied kung fu to protect themselves from rapists.