We had the good fortune of connecting with Alisa Yang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alisa, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Burnout can have real consequences. I didn’t realize the importance of prioritizing my body and mental health until after my chronic illnesses got bad enough to be debilitating. When capitalism convinced us that we are only as worthy as our labor, it takes a lot of de-conditioning to return to our natural state of being. It’s hard. It wasn’t till I was forced to rest that I started learning how to rest. Balance for me is knowing my boundaries, honoring them, and not being afraid to say no. Although I’m mourning that I can no longer be as productive as I like to be, re-purposing my time in healing is what I need right now to survive.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I work across mediums, from drawings, collage, to video and installation. I like making work that is defined by its own radical subjectivity. Often mining my life for material to reveal intersecting systems of oppression that produced the conditions for intergenerational traumas. By sharing my vulnerabilities, I am speaking out about the experiences and stories of Asian/American womxn that are often silenced or dismissed. For example, “Please Come Again” which exist as film, photography, and installation, is a trilogy that narrates the collective and personal memory of three generations of women in my family, navigating the rooms of Asia’s love hotels as a metaphor for our bodies and reclaiming one’s sexuality. As a filmmaker I use experimental documentary as a tool of resistance to criticize and re-frame a form rooted in colonialism. In “Sleeping with the Devil”, I recorded a personal Skype exorcism I experienced and edited with found footage to confront my religious trauma growing up in the cult like Evangelical deliverance ministry. I recently designed a billboard in Dilley, Texas, across the street from the biggest family detention center that says “Jesus was a Brown Child Seeking Aslyum” during the Christmas holiday season last year. In light of the pandemic and everything that’s been going on, I created a project where I made free 300 care packages as an installation on collective/self-care and rest. It was as a way to redistribute resources to the community given to me at Artpace San Antonio. I hope to get more opportunities doing site/situation specific, community driven work, especially in LA.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
LA’s delicious! I love LA’s multicultural diversity and I think this is most reflected in the food here. Since we can’t go anywhere during the pandemic and food is my love language, I’d take you to some of my favorite food spots for takeout or outdoor dining. We can get Thai breakfast at Siam Sunset, lunch at mini kabab in Glendale, late night street tacos, crawfish boil at boiling crab, Korean BBQ, Japanese diner in Little Tokyo, hot pot in San Gabriel Valley…maybe stop by Malibu seafood on the way to El Matador beach. Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to broadcast Tricia Hersey’s Nap ministry, her work advocating rest as resistance and reparations has been so affirming. Reading Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s books on disability justice and queer femme disabled bodies was the first time I felt seen with my invisible disability. When I need encouragement, the words of Audre Lorde empower me to speak my truth through art. Also shout out to Brown Girls Doc Mafia and A-DOC (Asian American documentary network), both supportive, inclusive doc filmmaking communities I’m proud to belong to.

Website: www.alisayang.com

Instagram: @alisa.y.yang

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alisayyang

Other: https://vimeo.com/alisayang

Image Credits
Image list: 1. “ASMR ♡ gift packing”, multichannel video, 2020Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio Photo credit Beth Devillier 2. “Wish You Were Here”, exhibition view, 2020 Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio. 3. “Rest Altar”, installation view, 2020. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio. Photo credit Beth Devillier 4. “Please Come Again”, behind the scene, 2015 5. “Please Come Again”, film still, 2016 6. “Sleeping with the Devil”, film still, 2017 7. “Jesus was a brown child seeking asylum”, billboard in Dilley, Texas, 2020. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio Photo credit Beth Devillier 8. “Jesus was a brown child seeking asylum”, billboard in Dilley, Texas, 2020. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio Photo credit Beth Devillier

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