art forum CONVERSATION: Margo Machida

Trans-Pacific Visions in Asian American Art This talk focuses on the Asia Pacific region and selected works by contemporary U.S.-based Asian American artists that engage themes of trans-Pacific circulation and global systems of cross-cultural exchange. Referencing discourses of diaspora, transnationality, and globalisation, the featured artworks provide insights into the formation of multi-sited points of attachment as contemporary artists cross and recross borders — physical, temporal, and psychic. Margo Machida is Professor 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 specialising in Asian American art and visual culture. Her most recent 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. Dr. Machida has received numerous grants and fellowships including support from the Smithsonian Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities. She is co-organizer of the Diasporic Asian Art Network (DAAN) and the East Coast Asian American Art Project (ECAAAP), and a founding member of the International Network for Diasporic Asian Art Research (INDAAR). In 2009, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the national Women’s Caucus for Art.