As a Hawai’i-born Americanist scholar, curator, and critic, Machida’s research draws on extended interviews with Asian American, Asian émigré, and artists of mixed heritages whose work engages with transcultural themes of circulation, contact, and cross-connections in today’s world. This talk highlights artworks spanning the 1990s to the early 2000s, which point to how the US Asian diaspora acts as a platform to shape artists’ sustaining identifications and imaginative attachments with the entangled histories that conjoin the Americas and the Pacific region to Asia, Europe, and Africa. Such work, by foregrounding subjectivities embedded in legacies of migration, trade, labor flows, colonialism, and war, is part of an expressive continuum that places Asian American artists in dynamic conversation with their counterparts in the global Asian diasporas.
Margo Machida, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Art History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. Born and raised in Hawai‘i, she is a scholar, independent curator, and cultural critic specializing in Asian American art and visual culture. She has lectured widely on her research both nationally and internationally, and served as a curatorial advisor for the inaugural 2017 Honolulu Biennial. Professor Machida is currently a scholarly advisor and contributing essayist for the upcoming 2021 retrospective exhibition, Carlos Villa: Roots, Rituals and Actions (co-presented by the Asian Art Museum and San Francisco Art Institute, in collaboration with Newark Museum of Art). Her book, Unsettled Visions: Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary (Duke University Press, 2009) received the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. She is an Associate Editor of the journal, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (Brill). Publications include: “Pacific Itineraries: Islands and Oceanic Imaginaries in Contemporary Asian American Art” (ADVA Journal, 2017); “Trans-Pacific Sitings: The Roving Imagery of Lynne Yamamoto” (Third Text, 2014); “Devouring Hawai‘i: Food, Consumption, and Contemporary Art” in Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader (NYU Press, 2013); and “Convergent Conversations – The Nexus of Asian American Art” in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
CCS Bard Speaker Series:
Each semester CCS Bard hosts a program of lectures by leading artists, curators, art historians, and critics, situating the school and museum’s concerns within the larger context of contemporary art production and discourse. Lectures are open to students and faculty, as well as to the general public, and will also be documented through video and/or audio recordings, which will reside in the CCS Bard Library and Archives. Speaker Series talks are held within Classroom 102 at CCS Bard unless otherwise noted. All talks are free and open to the public.
Seating & Accessibility:
Seating for all lectures is on a first-come, first-served basis. In order to ensure that events are accessible and comfortable, we’ll open the doors fifteen minutes prior to each event.
CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art is a single-level facility, its parking lot meet current ADA standards for wheelchair access, and one courtesy wheelchair is available. If you have specific questions about access, please write to ccs@bard.edu at least three days before the event and we will make every effort to accommodate you. During your visit, you may seek the assistance of Security and Visitor Service staff members who are present at the CCS Bard reception desk and throughout the exhibitions. All restrooms are open to anyone regardless of gender identity or expression.