I am so happy to see the exhibit Where Beauty Lies open at the Wing Luke Museum. I was part of the Community Action Committee that helped put the exhibit together. I always enjoy my time working with the museum. The exhibit’s description reads:
What defines beauty? Our newest exhibit Where Beauty Lies examines the complicated history, culture, industry, psychology,and politics of beauty from the Asian Pacific American perspective.With personal stories, reflections, art, and artifacts representing a diversity of identities and experiences, the exhibit aims to challenge and expand our ideas of what beauty truly means.
And here is a write up about the exhibit in Asian Weekly: https://nwasianweekly.com/2019/10/the-wings-new-exhibition-challenges-preconceptions-about-aapi-beauty/. I am quoted in the article:
Committee member Dr. Edmond Y. Chang, who travels back and forth between Seattle and his teaching job at Ohio University, is accustomed to exploring the role of the media.
“One of the questions I always ask my students…is, ‘Do you see yourself in the world around you—in media, in advertisements, in stories or your communities?’” Chang commented on how deep-seated societal pressures can be, even though we think we “know better…it is really important to understand that, even though we are told over and over that we are ‘beautiful on the inside’ and that beauty standards are all a construct, the structures and norms, ideologies, and institutions are very real and have very real consequences for bodies, practices, and identities.”