KUA (crossing-beyond) is a project initiated by curator Yu’an Huang and born out of the need to connect with transnational minds. The cross-medium publication will investigate six topics around the human condition by working with collaborators with cross-culture backgrounds to reimagine, elevate and bring methods towards a hybrid future.
The first issue – realised during Yu’an’s Asymmetry Art Foundation fellowship at Chisenhale and whilst in-residence at Delfina Foundation – is titled Re-Integration and explores the feeling of estrangement individuals may endure from returning to a first-culture after a long period of absence.
In response to the shifting migration policies in the last decade, KUA starts out from the personal and social psychological and asks: among those who are removed and the ones who are left behind, are there many of us missing the version of ourselves we can no longer access? What happens when the process of re-integration fails?
KUA combs through such thoughts via a cross-medium approach. The part physical and part digital publication contains existing and commissioned works including from: artist Doug Aitken; professor in Globalisation & Development Dr Valentina Mazzucato; and oral interviews of re-integration life stories.
KUA offers a closer inspection of the nuances and complex states of transnational identities, in the hopes that it enables connection and space to unpack migration journeys unique to our lifetime and beyond. The publication is bound by fiction to resonate with a wider readership, and a letter for readers to respond to: ‘If you are about to relocate’.
Contributors
Doug Aitken: Migration (empire)
Alberto Bougleux: Ten hours away from home
Dr Valentina Mazzucato: Meaning-making during ‘home’ visits
Hana K. Ohnewher: KUA story 1/6
Joshua Yang: Huiet-Omega / Alpha-Kiuk
Kengwu Yerlikaya: Identity Issue (000)
Xenoangel: The Zone
Life story oral interviews on Soundcloud
Kathleen Bomani, curator and self taught historian
Obi Abuchi, motivational speaker, author and leadership consultant
Jacqui Barrowcliffe, visual artist and art therapist
Wei-Yun Lin-Górecka, author and translator of Polish literature.
Collaborators
Lara Lynn Baclig, social media and copy editor
Jeanne Constantin, publication designer
Marwan Kaabour, visual identity designer
Sasha Perera, sound stamp
Acknowledgements
This issue has been realised through the support of Asymmetry Art Foundation and co-produced with Chisenhale Gallery and Delfina Foundation. The KUA project is a curatorial output of Yu’an Huang as the recipient of the second Asymmetry Curatorial Writing Fellowship at Chisenhale Gallery.
Colophon
Published May 2022
ISBN 978-1-9996389-3-1
190 x 250 mm, 52 pages
Print run 250 copies