Queer Silence is a video essay born out of my utter fascination with silence in cinema. This is not to be mistaken with silent-era cinema, but instead the use of silence in sound films – an artistic technique that could not be applied until sound and film were synchronized. Once sound became unified with moving images, its absence became a powerful and versatile method for enhancing emotional and artistic expression onscreen. I explore cinematic silence in this project through videographic criticism: a research method that deploys audiovisual techniques to critically analyze and reflect on audiovisual media. This relatively new form of scholarship differs significantly from traditional written analysis or even a recorded lecture, allowing meanings to emerge through the critic’s reconfiguration of images, sounds, and text. In this way, the video essay offers the perfect method for analyzing quiet moments in film; I directly experiment with the relationship between image and silence. What began as an exercise exploring silence as an element of dialogue in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) blossomed into an exploration of the vast, complicated, and entrancing applications of silence within a selection of contemporary queer films. Indeed, to be queer is to be all too familiar with silence; silencing your own sexuality (or having it silenced by others), silent longing for recognition and acceptance, or even the desire for silence in the noise of the heteronormative world. These quiet moments in the daily lives of queer communities are thus reflected in queer media; they become an exchange of unspoken words and an expression of intricate emotions, demanding deep contemplation from the audience. It is within these films that one truly understands that queer silence isn’t really silence at all – and it is time to start listening.

The humble toilet, whose sole function is to transport waste away from us, is a machine. This is how the U.S. government wants us to view immigrants right now, as human waste to be discarded. Not as individuals with loved ones, or stories, or a heartbeat. The machine that facilitates these unruly acts of human departure, has a name: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE frames this act of hate as “disposing of the bad guys”. There has been a massive increase of individuals being deported without even so much as due process of law. ICE is a machine that acts as the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Mahmoud Khalil, a student with legal green card status, was detained in March and deported to a prison out of state and away from his legal team. Mahmoud was not given any trial before being unlawfully imprisoned, just flushed away. Mahmoud and his case are well known, but there are more cases like his every day. As you read this, the federal government is attacking UW’s own international students regarding the legality of their visas, making their current legal standing unclear. My painting aims to protest against these governmental threats and acts of terrorism. The toilet, a disarming appliance that everyone in this audience will be familiar with, is here reframed. Who decides what is waste? Who gets to pull the chain? Can we stop them? While the deeper message of my painting might not be obvious at first glance, I hope that the alien and inhuman shape will captivate individuals enough to read my statement and to learn that this toilet is not just a toilet. What can we do about this inhuman machine?

This research project is my English Honors thesis. I am researching Asian American history and feminism, taking stock of current Asian American depictions in media, drawing off existing Asian American literature, and theorizing and practicing comedy as a way forward. I want to push past the Model Minority stereotype and the current sad, intergenerational conflict heavy tone of Asian American literature. To do so, I’ll draw off sources like the UW Press published Asian American Feminism and Women of Color Politics book and employ Asian American feminism and comedy to bring a lighter tone to Asian American Literature. Asian American Feminism is characterized by an “invisible” yet active praxis of mobilizing the diverse, heterogenous Asian American community and constantly occupying and pushing to improve conflicting perceptions such as the submissive, assimilated female caretaker and the threatening yet sexualized foreign agent. I am textually analyzing books like Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu) and Minor Feelings (Cathy Park Hong). I am analyzing how raunchy and unconventional comedians like Ali Wong layer their jokes into a stand-up comedy special form. All of this will come together in a scrapbook. Drawing together book arts and the resilience of Asian American identity against fragmentation driven by oppressive laws, I will dive into prejudiced legislature and significant Asian American novels. My scrapbook will chronicle uncovering Asian America together and look towards the future. The scrapbook will serve as a meeting place to first condense historical context, then honor existing Asian American works, and put them in conversation with each other across time and medium. After my scrapbook facilitates these scraps becoming something new together as a whole, I will shift to comedy. I will theorize what makes Asian American comedians like Ali Wong so effective at reaching wide audiences, and I will write comedic bits myself.

Dialogue/ loving yourself as you would love another recontextualizes the queer coming-of-age narrative by using poetry, drag, and video to embrace abstraction and fragmentation as radical philosophies of self-love. Focused on the ‘girl fag,’ Dialogue/ critiques identity-based systems of queer understanding, examines how the ‘shocking/misplaced’ femininity central to the ‘girl fag’ position separates her from both transness and gayness. The suspension created by this undefinability and the obligation the ‘girl fag’ has to queer abstraction and non-identity performativity is explored through ‘dialogue’ with a dragged-up-self and typical coming-of-age motifs - love, sexuality, physical growth, and discovering passions. The Dialogue/ project consists of a short (20-30min) video poem, the accompanying poetry collection, and a short essay succinctly exploring the mission of the work in academic writing. Visuals of the project celebrate drag traditions and dance as ways to connect with queer ancestry while the sound and writing explore vocal layering, abstract sounds, historical queer languages like Polari, and ‘fag-cent’ inflection. The planned display for this event would include short sections of video, stills, and conversation about project focus and methods. This project is a process of thinking, an of-age-reflection rooted in celebrating the resistance and experience of undefinition. 

A trigger warning included in the opening sequence of Blink Twice (2024), an American psychological thriller directed by Zoë Kravitz, motivates this research project. Trigger warnings are a controversial topic of debate. While some critics exalt their positive benefits for minorities and PTSD, others argue they "spoil" the material and/or perpetuate a victim mentality. Trigger warnings originated as a cautionary device prefacing personal accounts of trauma in online spaces for sexual abuse survivors, and are now commonly found on college campuses, streaming services, and other content driven spaces. In recent years, trigger warnings have appeared on the big screen, inserted directly after the MPA rating. It is unusual to find a preface of this sort in a horror film, a genre that draws an audience through depictions of graphic violence and representations of trauma. The project employs the tools of videographic criticism-a critical rearrangement of images, sounds, and words-to assess Blink Twice as a retrospective exploration of feminine representation in horror. My audiovisual essay, "Red Rabbits," traces the lineage of Kravitz's film by concentrating on three influential periods in the study of horror: canonical horror of the 1970s, feminist critiques of sexualized violence in the 1990s, and the contemporary landscape of the #MeToo movement. Taking the historical context of the film into consideration elicits questions of necessity, purpose, and impact of the trigger warning. "Red Rabbits" employs multiscreen, superimposition, and intertitles to explore how the text that prefaces this female-directed horror film informs and affects the viewing experience. Rather than offer an answer to ongoing debates, or insist on a singular perspective, "Red Rabbits" implores its viewer to investigate their own perceptions of the trigger warning's role in both the instance of Blink Twice and in modern culture. 

Heartistry is a digital art gallery project dedicated to showcasing the journey of healing and empowerment for victim-survivors of relationship abuse. Heartistry, as a concept and in practice, embodies the powerful intersection of heart and artistry. As a victim-survivor myself, art became an outlet for me to express my feelings, reclaim power, and honor the complexity of resilience. My goal with this project is to establish a general understanding of how recovery is non-linear and deeply personal while also a universal human experience. I produced nine art pieces, utilizing three theoretical frameworks to explore different healing directions. Each framework -- Resilience Theory, Narrative Therapy, and Trauma-Informed Care -- guides three art pieces in direction, meaning, and intentionality. Project Heartistry consists of three sections: the art and description connecting it to the framework, resources for victim-survivors and their supporters as well as resources to learn more about each framework, and an about page with the intention of the project. My hope is that other victim-survivors may feel empowered to share their art with me and the site can adapt into a gallery of many artist's work, but for now, it is just my nine pieces. It was incredibly important for me to approach the art, my language, and site design sensitively, intentionally, and inclusively. The biggest takeaways from Heartistry is that healing is not linear, victim-survivors are not alone, and art is therapeutic. 

The Adapting Ownership Project explores how informal placemaking processes in Seattle’s migrant communities help adapt generational relationships with land—specifically related to food and collaborative ownership—in a new environment. Through video documentation of local placemaking case studies, the project highlights gaps in formal design and policies governing public space use that hinder resettlement. Focusing on migrant communities from the Global South, particularly first-generation and working-class migrants, the research addresses the tension in adapting to new environments shaped by forced migration. The project examines how historical migration patterns, driven by labor opportunities and recent political and economic instability, have influenced the cultural and geographical landscape of Seattle. The subsequent transformations, such as restaurants, gardens, and public art, reflect the resilience of migrant communities. By using placemaking to redefine shared spaces, these communities adapt generational knowledge and practices, revealing shortcomings in formal policies. Video documentation serves as a tool to build empathy and challenge dominant narratives about marginalized groups.

It began with a personal experience involving my cat and a mouse. This seemingly trivial yet traumatic event prompted me to reflect on historical parallels, especially the 1960s Korean dictatorship, when young people were forced into mouse-killing competitions as a form of control and to promote national development through exploitative labor. I questioned my fear of mice and why they felt so unfamiliar. I realized that my fear was rooted in stories my parents shared about their experiences during the dictatorship, including their involvement in the New Village Movement as students. By drawing from both personal experience and Korean history, I created narratives that bridge two different eras, sharing these stories to evoke empathy. The installation invited the audience to engage with these narratives on a meaningful level, utilizing innovative technology such as autonomous robotic mice to create a dynamic interaction.