Category: Katie Han

Description

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, anti-Asian racism has increased dramatically across the country. This trend has left many in the Asian American community deeply scarred during a time of confusion and vulnerability for all. In America, Asians exist in a purgatorial status, frequently excluded from conversations about racism. We felt strongly that these stories should not be silenced under the false model minority narrative.

Our project seeks to convey the magnitude of recent hate crimes by depicting stories reported to the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. The simulation is populated with paper figures programmed with varying degrees of aggression walking along generated paths. When figures of different groups cross paths, the collision results in either a neutral or a negative encounter. One of the victim’s limbs falls and a story appears on the ground, which gradually fades away but leaves an imprint that permanently disrupts the landscape. The stories accumulate as the simulation runs until all of the figures are fully dismembered.