FALL 2021 by VISIONS

A Brown / RISD Visual & Literary Arts Magazine Vol. XIX Issue 2

A Brown / RISD Visual & Literary Arts Magazine Vol. XXIII Issue 1 1 VISIONS

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Letter from the Editors Dear Reader: It’s wonderful to share the Fall 2021 issue of VISIONS magazine with you all. As we near the end of our time as Editors-in-Chief and at Brown, we want to take a moment to ref lect on the inspiration and joy we’ve found as part of the VISIONS community. We both learned about VISIONS before we were even officially Brown students, at ADOCH, and VISIONS has been a defining part of our time at college. As we settle back into the rhythms of campus life and in-person interactions, we are even more strongly reminded of the importance of the community that VISIONS brings together and the larger impact that our magazine has on the Brown/RISD AAPIA community. We aim for our magazine to serve always as a space that highlights and celebrates the diversity of our communities and hope that you find value within these pages. We are so thankful to have such a talented pool of student writers and artists to draw on, and wholeheartedly thank everyone featured in this Fall issue for sharing their work and their experiences here. We also want to express our gratitude and affection for our ever growing VISIONS Editorial Board, which is the largest it has been in years. To our new members and returning editors alike, it has been a pleasure working with you this semester—your dedication to VISIONS has made this issue and the production process the best it can be. We hope you all enjoy this issue of VISIONS, and thank you for going on this journey with us. With love,

Emily Chen and Jessie Jing

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Mission Statement VISIONS is a publication that highlights and celebrates the diversity of Brown and RISD’s AAPIA community. We are committed to being an open literary and artistic forum for individuals who hold this identity, as well as other members of the university community, to freely express and address issues relating to the AAPI experience. VISIONS further serves as a forum for issues that cannot find a voice in other campus publications. As a collaborative initiative, VISIONS strives to strengthen and actively engage with Brown and RISD’s vibrant community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as the larger Providence community and beyond.

On the Cover Ill-Fated | Watercolor, pigment, gouache, and color pencil on paper Andy ’22 is probably napping...

Editors-in‑Chief Jessie Jing ’22 Emily Chen ’22 Layout Editors Cecilia Vogler ’22 Angela Chen ’25 Visual Arts Editor Cindy Qiao ’22 Literary Arts Editor Sichen Grace Chen ’22 Web Editors Connie Liu ’23 Caitlin Rowlings ’24 Graphic Designer Lisa Yu Li ’22

Inside Cover Nagano Landscapes | Gouache on bristol paper Emi ’23 loves all kinds of rodents.

Assistant Arts and Web Editor Christine Jeong ’24 Assistant Literary Arts and Web Editor Grace Xiao ’24 Social Media Heads Robin Zeng ’24 Anjali Shah ’25 Treasurer Michelle Yuan ’23

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Events Organizer JO Ouyang ’26 RISD Outreach Katherine Fu ’25 Underclassmen Outreach Rachel Ly ’25 Cameron Le ’25 Printer Brown Graphic Services A very special thanks to … Contributors and Staff Brown Center for Students of Color Modern Culture and Media Department Malcom S. Forbes Center for Culture and Media Studies East Asian Studies Department Visual Arts Department Brown University School of Public Health Contact visions@brown.edu facebook.com/VISIONS.Brown @VISIONS_magazine Disclaimer The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of VISIONS’ sponsors.

Table of Contents 6

White Rabbits and Sky

Lettuce

Mom and I by the window

Karen Hu

Grandmother's House Emi Hughes

Sichen Grace Chen 22 7

Snail Baby

Pink Drink, 10/7/21

Zihan Zhang

Exploring the Studio Andy Wang

Shyaoman Zhang 23 8

Edit Visioning

Generations by the Window

Karen Hu

The Mayor of Tiny Town Andy Wang

Skyler Chong 24 9

Feel Things Deeply

Heat Wave Knit Dress

(Excerpted) Joel Yong

Carina Zhang 25

summertime tablecloth Cindy Qiao

Namesake

Picnic

Under the Sea dinner table Karen Hu

now and then, a molten dream or so

Stranger, Desert Oceans Hansae Lee

Vessels Sue Sima

Henry Ding 13

Or, The Whale Naya Lee Chang

Victims of Hatred Sarosh Nadeem

Sarah Khadraoui 12

Ode to Mother Rowe Park

HUANG HOU Angela Chen

Katherine Fu 11

RED CHAIR Yuya Zhou

If I get lost, please take me to (sesame field)

Cindy Qiao

The Mongolian National

Angela Chen

victims of hatred Sarosh Nadeem

Anthem Becca Erdenebulgan

Bench - Barroco

Maggie Pei 16

Ivan Zhao

Garage Joanne (Jae) Ahn

The Soldiers and the Tiger

Andy Wang 17

Randong Yu

t(ex)t(ile)

Bay Mall Sophia Brown

Joanne (Jae) Ahn 35

Untitled Helmet Rowe Park

If I get lost, please take me to

The Beauty of Myself Existing in this Space

Caterina Dong

One Pair of Pears: Form One

mom cooking Karen Hu

Family Dreams

freewrite 2 Caterina Dong

(sesame field) Carina Zhang

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White Rabbits and Sky Lettuce | Ink on bristol paper Sichen Grace ’22 is spilling ink everywhere.

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Snail Baby | Digital Shyaoman ’22 enjoys drinking warm milk.

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Edit Visioning | Charcoal and pencil on paper Skyler ’22 has back problems and feels old.

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Joel Yong ’25 is dreaming of corgis.

Feel Things Deeply (Excerpted) i see a lot of myself in the natural phenomenas here. the clouds move quickly here like they’re running away from something. one moment it’s sunny the next overcast the next pouring just for a few moments before the sun has the courage to peak out again. the leaves are starting to change colors here. they shine the most brilliant hues of warm colors shedding what they once were to become who they are. what a shame it will be when they inevitably fall. i don’t think i’m ready for winter.

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RED CHAIR | Ash and milk paint Yuya ’22 designed the Red Chair.

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Ode to Mother | Acrylic on canvas Rowe ’22 misses their mother’s cooking.

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Or, The Whale | Painted poplar bench with linseed oil and beeswax finish Naya ’24 eats a bowl of Cheerios every night.

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Stranger, Desert Oceans | Photograph Hansae ’24 is debating free will.

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Becca ’24 is still looking for a new personality for this season.

The Mongolian National Anthem The lyrics of the Mongolian national anthem Roll off my tongue like honey Sticky, Slowly, but surely But if you asked me what the lyrics meant You’d have to watch As I stab a knife to the song Rip it apart from the seams Take out the words I recognize And still say “I don’t know. I think it’s about prosperity and stuff” I grew up walking home In the smokiest city in the universe Passing by silent sleepers who stayed there for days until someone came and took their body My lungs filled with exhaust My legs froze in time As I withered the winter chill But my grandmother With dimples deeper than the Orkhon Valley Who whispered magic every time she spoke Waited for me with warm broth that thawed me with every sip I still bear scars on my knees From the stumbles I took on the streets of Adelaide Or the time I fell off the carousel in Sydney Where my tongue first learned the twists and turns and the hiss of the English language Where the scorching heat of the sun never really disappears Where the remnants of the land hides in my accent When I first stepped foot on the soil of this spoiled country It didn’t feel like the first time at all It felt more like remembering than learning Where every dream and nightmare I ever had Was realized

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Now I am almost 20 years old and I’ve hugged my father twice At any given moment There is nothing I wanna do more than ride my blue bike In the suburbia Where there are no sleepers on the streets Not even cars for that matter Where the time moves slower Than the thoughts in my head I am the quiet tenderness of the suburbs That swallowed my highschool years The Colorado canyons that cradled me in their arms each summer I am my mother’s rage And all the mothers before her I am the complex divorce between my past selves that grow farther apart each year My mother says I don’t know anything about my culture But what am I If not a nomad Changing personalities with the seasons In love with the extremities Every bone in my body restless The eldest daughter who has never learned to sit still What am I if not a warrior Constant battle with my own body Trying to tame its rolls and curves My fist forever folded My feet forever in motion

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Garage | Thrifted fabrics Joanne ’22 will miss all the lovely people of RISD.

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mom cooking | Watercolor and ink Karen ’24 enjoys re-watching Bao.

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Bay Mall | Pen Sophia ’22 says hello.

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If I get lost, please take me to (sesame field) | Mixed media on paper Carina ’24 needs more sleep.

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Mom and I by the window | Watercolor and ink Karen ’24 enjoys re-watching Bao.

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Zihan ’25 misses her cat.

Pink Drink, 10/7/21 Can I have a venti pink drink with light ice? —but my hand still freezes, even with light ice. Don’t drink iced water, drink hot tea, drink Chinese white tea—it’s already October: my Dad’s voice was pounding behind my phone screen. Gently I stroked my pink mug to feel the stir of hot tea, yet I saw my dad froze, too (the other user’s connection is unstable). But how? Pink should be warm, intimate, veiled; should be a timid cloth bag for all your homemade madness; should be a bit of slut, a piece of sunset. But how? The f lawless pink sunset is right above my head but it is so different: it’s a collage, a work of art. Someone carefully calculated and made it—stuck a soaped bird feather which contained 10.8% pink; hanged a piece of cloud which contained 64% pink; captured that vanishing smudge of light spot which contained 9.3% pink...Pinkpinkpinkpink. It’s the brightest pink I’ve ever seen in my life—my tears are swelling up. I know I used to own another piece of pink sky—it creeped up on me with its f lamboyant, reeking hands, whispering I love you I loved you. The pink sky crawled onto the crevices of Hutong, the sharp edge of a window, and my exhausted lap, like an aged cat. —But see, that cloud was a miniature of my life; I dared not to calculate it. I used to stare at it everyday till the sky’s eyelids began to droop. Hi how are you can I have a venti pink drink with light ice? Can I pour this artificial sunset all down my throat?

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Generations by the Window | Watercolor and ink Karen ’24 enjoys re-watching Bao.

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Heat Wave Knit Dress | Knit mercerized cotton, plastic and glass beads Cindy ’22 is on her second cup of coffee.

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summertime tablecloth | Gouache on paper, wooden beads and string Cindy ’22 is on her second cup of coffee.

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Namesake | Fabric, thread, and batting Katherine ’25 is searching for the longest french fry.

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Picnic | Digital Sarah ’23 never leaves college building.

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Under The Sea | Mixed media sculpture Henry ’25 is looking for snacks.

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Angela ’25 is looking for unerring fulfillment.

now and then, a molten dream or so Culture nursed us on concept, labor—the machinery of the f lesh. Medical-grade mouth, steal-clean anterograde forgetfulness, and a soapy mass-produced soul. Geared down into deep white industry. They ate your mother’s mind. Ate your shelves and fruits, your child. You take the reminder like the pill: morningly. You die like you die: nightly. Don’t be facile, culture says. Anything can eat within the limits of its form. But you could not listen at all when you were taught form. God, my god, you grew yourself up on visions that screamed. Chill of all that future. Dark of your interiority, hiding half a glass p(un/i)cture of you. What if the circle can’t hold? If the incline becomes eternal? Now and then, a molten dream or so. The nursery you secrete at the back of your throat scathes into a circus—you are kneeling there, suffering. I do not and can not tell you that I see you. Your glitt-quick imagination. Your f lesh: a secret crying frenzy. Your lashes stung with the inf lux of memory, a thousand hard drugs. Your greatest friend is suspended in a comb deep of your moonless, raining body. Womb, a hearse of loss. A white snake curls by your rib, and it weeps. Kobayashi walks in your shadow, but he sings. And you open up another hot-lipped bedside prayer, against all this fate, because in a complex of the most perfect empty, you reek of love.

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Bench - Barroco | Maple wood finished with pearlescent paint Maggie ’23 got burned by a cup of hot Earl Grey.

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The Soldiers and the Tiger | Watercolor, pigment, and color pencil on paper Andy ’22 is looking for a nice rock.

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Caterina ’24 has killed the pig in her head. Have you?

t(ex)t(ile) I am as if sewn yesterday. My poems follow the crooked stitching of their genesis. Metered bit by bit. Meteored bit by bit, Thrust a needle against fabric and call it art. Call it love. Call it holy. Call it what mom said about TV. Flick the remote sideways to finally crumble the moon. This is art, too. Not a patchwork of dust and stars and glass table lights. Not a thread of hope lingering after dessert that maybe today you will finally become friends. This is sitting at the dinner table yesterday. This is taking the needle to the wall instead. This is looking at space for the stars and only finding them on the screen. This is weaving the world together, all by yourself.

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Untitled Helmet | Acrylic on canvas, wire sculpture (video) Rowe ’25 misses their mother’s cooking.

Full video:

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Grandmother’s House | Machine knit with wool, cotton, and linen Emi ’23 likes being barefoot.

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Exploring the Studio | Color pencil, watercolor, ink washes and gouache on paper Andy ’22 is looking for a nice rock.

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The Mayor of Tiny Town | Color pencil, watercolor and ink washes on paper Andy ’22 is looking for a nice rock.

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If I get lost, please take me to (sesame field) | Mixed media on paper Carina ’24 needs more sleep.

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Angela ’25 is looking for unerring fulfillment.

HUANG HOU i am nighttime-asphalt in your body, making myself a true-silk cot. but the clock trips into day. so so it goes the sun fissures suddenly into tar, hot yolk black wok. the popping-candy chimera sipping itself away, a good gasp now ungasped. that’s principle. for shame for shame that i tipped so deep but god for god i am just a fucking baby. the left-handed empress of the dead kneeling in a blue-gingko garden as anemic light welled up on my brick, or salt baijiu— mad-freckled despot under a duvet. in my dream justice is made of mahogany: f lammable under a thick-shell sheen. well, i half-hope the woodworking is stubborn enough to hold my blood-orange philosophies & bare shoulders, but i don’t want the pole of heaven: glaciers clarified into sediment & rectitude. there’s no terrible danger. but tissue, indignity, & a live wire— the collective, it cycles. oh now. call in the dark. leash me in tourmaline. in this cleanness there’s one final truth for me to blight & i like the challenge.

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Victims of Hatred | Colored pencil on wood Sarosh ’24 wants to eat oranges in the winter sun.

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Vessels | Ceramics Sue ’24 explores the vulnerabilities of human emotions through hand-coiled ceramic forms.

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dinner table | Watercolor and ink Karen ’24 enjoys re-watching Bao.

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victims of hatred | Colored pencil on MDF Board Sarosh ’24 wants to eat oranges in the winter sun.

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Ivan ’22 is dreaming of taking a nap.

Family Dreams The Arrival When I was six, we f lew to visit you in Beijing. My arms, like the wings of plane, lifted up for takeoff and bounced up and down as we soared through the skies. We touched down late that night. It was 11:30pm, but

because you couldn’t send me a gift. 奶奶，没关系, I texted back, my fingers clumsily spelling the characters. I waited for a bit, but there wasn’t a response. Oh well, I thought, you’ll respond. You always do.

you were there waiting for me, holding an umbrella and a bag of freshly purchased peaches and bagged milk from the corner shop. I grinned so wide as I ran over. You chuckled, cooing as you handed me a peach and I took it into my pudgy hands as I bit into the soft, juicy f lesh. The liquid dribbled over my hands and onto your jacket but we didn’t have a care in the world.

哥哥 Do you remember asking me if I was gay and I started to panic and simply said that I was not but deep down I knew that it was a lie that I had discovered three years earlier but was still coming to terms with and you told

In that moment, our family was whole.

me that it was okay if I was?

When I was twelve, you f lew to visit me in Seattle. It

Do you remember calling me late at night because I

had been years! I hadn’t been practicing the rhymes and songs you taught me the last time we talked on the phone. 小白兔… I started, trailing off as I forgot the word. The words f lew out of my mouth like stones being tossed in a river, garbled and messy. 宝贝，没关系 you said. I sighed in relief and discomfort. To you, it was never a problem. You were happy to see me! To spend time with your grandsons in a different country. You hobbled over to the kitchen, legs no longer as strong and steady as they were when you picked me up that

had posted on social media about how unhappy I was and you sent me dog pictures to cheer me up because you knew that I was struggling and wanted to know that I was okay and I said I was fine? Do you remember visiting me during a random weekend since you said you had some free time even though you were working 100 hour work weeks and were clearly so stressed and yet wanted to see the smile on my face as you brought my favorite cake from NYC and you told

last time. 要吃苹果吗？I could never say no.

me that it reminded you of me?

Now that I’m twenty one, I have regrets. When was

Because I did.

the last time I had seen you? You called me once over WeChat, but that was so long ago. You apologized profusely

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One Pair of Pears: Form One | Metal Randong ’22 likes melon cream soda.

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The Beauty of Myself Existing in this Space | Fabric silkscreen, machine knit Joanne ’22 loves IU.

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Caterina ’24 has killed the pig in her head. Have you?

freewrite 2 (Excerpted) Let’s: shame I had none as a kid until my father forced otherwise Do you wonder how it would have been different too? look at the country borders lives open-air prisons people surveillance humanity knaffeh killings keffiyah talk about burden a weightless object fills your intestines and pours your guts out spilling into spleen apex of appendix storming stromal cells even they cannot control celebrate our substance when your birthday candles are all blown out the cake remains, spongy and porous. you want to be greater than your parts. reckon with the past I refuse. The past will reckon with me. with the gift of present. with the life of future. I reckon the past will.

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demands I hammer a thin paper into your door. All ninetyfive are there, if you wish to count. If you count my wishes, you see I have no intention of schism. I want liberation, sliced thick and served fresh. mediocrity I got killed. I saw the sunset and think I am too feeble to know otherwise. The roof is so, so tall. weariness If you know better, do not step outside the line. It is red for a reason, traced on your back for a reason. talk about age 9 going trees climbing bananas peeling bark scraping peel

elegies 姥姥, I hope your bed is comfy 我在月亮上看到你. 我在月亮上看到你.

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The Family ILLUSTRATED BY KATHERINE FU

Lisa ’22 needs coins for laundry. Rachel ’25 is having a beautiful day. Robin ’24 is swimming in an empty swimming pool. JO ’26 is wearing flip flops in the freezing rain. Michelle ’23 is tracing shapes in the sand. Katherine ’25 is fighting the urge to get another piercing. Cindy ’22 is on her second cup of coffee. Connie ’23 is chasing ghosts. Emily ’22 is feeling the passage of time. Jessie ’22 is feeling sentimental. Grace ’24 is craving soup dumplings. Sichen Grace ’22 is spilling ink everywhere. Angela ’25 is going to wake up at 3pm today. Anjali ’25 is napping and drinking coffee... at the same time. Caitlin ’24 wants more squishmallows. Cameron ’25 is thinking of tattoo ideas. Cece ’22 is probably still in bed. Christine ’24 is listening to Christmas music.

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