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What might our commitments be when we practice “Asian American and diasporic” “art” “history”? What could the (political) goals of such a practice be? What are the consequences of naming or codifying such an art history? Where (in our collective past, in other disciplines, in other matter) might we find methodological tools that allow this practice to be other than an attempt to gain representation within existing historical frameworks? This session will begin with these questions and imagine potential histories, subjects, and objects of Asian American diasporic art history.

Serena Qiu (they/she) completed their dissertation in 2022 at the University of Pennsylvania on world’s fairs and transpacific imperial displays of the nineteenth century. They currently work in fiber and textile design.

Grace Yasumura (she/her) is an assistant curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), where she is co-curating an exhibition, The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture (opens fall 2024), which considers the intertwined histories of race and American sculpture. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, she served as the project manager for Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past, a digital archive that investigates how we visualize, interpret, and engage the histories of enslavement through contemporary monuments created for public spaces. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Maryland, where she completed a dissertation that considered entangled histories of race, labor, and citizenship in New Deal post office murals.