Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence at Seattle Art Museum
By Nadya Wang

Midpoint is a monthly series that invites established Southeast Asian contemporary artists to take stock of their career thus far, reflect upon generational shifts and consider the advantages and challenges of working in the present day. It is part of A&M Dialogues and builds upon the popular Fresh Faces series.

This month’s guest is Anida Yoeu Ali, a performance artist, poet, global agitator and educator. She was born in 1974 in Battambang, Cambodia, and raised in Chicago as a first-generation American, with mixed Malay, Cham, Khmer and Thai ancestries. Her solo exhibition ‘Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence’ opened at the Seattle Art Museum on 17 January 2024, and will close in a week, on 7 July. Recently, she won the 2024 Arts Innovator Award from The Artist Trust. She is currently Senior Artist-in-Residence at the University of Washington Bothell.

In this interview, Anida elaborates on her practice and the multiple roles she takes, including as a spouse and parent, and how they all come together. She also ruminates on what it is that keeps her going, such as her wish to bring contemporary art to more audiences. To end, she shares her expansive vision to complete her long-running series, ‘The Red Chador’. Please enjoy Anida’s words at Midpoint.

Anida Yoeu Ali against the flags and “I Am A Muslim” protest sign from ‘The Red Chador: Threshold’ Installation. Photo by Scott Leen. Image courtesy of Seattle Art Museum.

Could you share a decision and/or event (could be happenstance) that marked a significant turn/moment in your path as an artist?

The biggest shift for me was when I intentionally moved away from performing works that relied heavily on text, and started to create works that were performed in silence.

Growing up as an Asian, Muslim, Refugee, American Woman, I learned to perfect my English, speaking without the accent that marked my family as “other” and “foreign.” I had sharpened my verbal skills as a weapon but when I started to travel overseas in the early 2000s to share my spoken poetry and English-based storytelling about my traumas (I often spoke loudly about racism, misogyny, oppression, genocide, etc.) – I felt that my perfect English failed me. Language failed me because people outside of America including my fellow Cambodians could not understand the nuance of my story or the craft in my verbal expression. People felt the energy and passion of my performance, but they didn’t have a clue as to what I was saying. Even when the words were translated, there was a deep loss of the moment experienced. It felt like the time for me to decolonise my practice, and shift it to a form that felt more freeing and ultimately something that could transcend borders and languages. In 2006, my work started to shift toward performance art which opened whole new worlds and unlocked my own imagination to new possibilities.

Anida Yoeu Ali, ‘Abbey Road, The Red Chador: Genesis I’, Main St. & 102nd Ave, Bellevue, Washington, USA, 2021, archival inkjet print. Photo by Dylan Maddux, © Studio Revolt. Image courtesy of the artist.

When have been milestone achievements for you as an artist, and why have they been particularly memorable? This could relate to goals you set out to achieve, recognition at home/abroad through a particular exhibition/publication etc.

The current show ‘Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence’ at the Seattle Asian Art Museum is the biggest solo exhibition of my life and a significant milestone. The six-month long exhibition spans 6,000 square feet of gallery space inside the museum and features two iconic performance art pieces that span 14 years of work, performed in 13 different countries. I am grateful that this exhibition has received such great critical and community praise. Most notably, the live performance of ‘The Buddhist Bug’ had a record-breaking turnout of over 1,000 people in attendance, some waiting for 2 hours to have their moment with The Bug. With this show and its exposure to an American audience, I have had the honour of my works being acquired by the Seattle Art Museum, and I was awarded the 2024 Arts Innovator Award by The Artist Trust, the state of Washington’s largest arts-based philanthropic organisation.

Prior to this moment in 2024, other past milestones include my decision to relocate from the U.S. and take residency in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 2011 to 2015. That decision also changed the trajectory of my work with inspiration for my performances drawn directly from Cambodian people and places. I feel that everything I created prior to living in Phnom Penh were mere sketches preparing me for what I would actualise in Cambodia.

Additionally, another big milestone was when I presented my initial photographic series of The Buddhist Bug with JavaArts Gallery at Art Stage Singapore in 2014. It was there that I met the collector Jean Michel Beurdeley who was an early collector of my works. Jean Michel and his son Eric Bunnag Booth’s early and consistent support for my works not only sustained my practice but opened doors to other opportunities. To date, their museum MAIIAM has the largest collection of acquired prints from The Buddhist Bug series. Both 2014 and 2015 were great years for me as I received commissions for both ‘The Bug’ series and for the birth of ‘The Red Chador’work from the Palais de Tokyo. Curators from the Asia-Pacific region really championed my work, and their belief helped to propel my work further. This includes the commission by the Asia Pacific Triennale for a large-scale video art piece titled ‘Into the Night’, which resulted in the last narrative iteration of ‘The Buddhist Bug’ series, taking ‘The Bug’ into the nightlife of Phnom Penh. The resulting work from this series also won me the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2015. Sometimes artists want to say that it doesn’t matter if we win awards or not, but the truth is external validations helped to keep me going at times when it felt like the road and life of an artist, especially a working mother artist, was so difficult and unrecognised.

Anida Yoeu Ali, ‘Campus Dining, The Buddhist Bug Series’, 2012, archival inkjet print. Photo by Masahiro Sugano, © Studio Revolt. Image courtesy of the artist.

Could you walk us through a typical work day, or a typical week? What routine do you follow to nourish yourself/your artistic practice?

There is nothing typical about my days. My schedule every day is hectic and quite busy especially as a wife and mother to three daughters all under the age of 16. Because I cannot make a living as an artist that properly supports my family of five, I took a teaching job. I am a teaching professor at the University of Washington Bothell where each quarter, I teach two courses in contemporary art and studio practice. Between teaching and raising my children, I have to slot in time to make or think about art in between those two priorities. True to my diasporic identity, I have to constantly navigate life in fragmentation. My “art time” typically happens during my “2nd shift” which is from 9PM-1AM when the kids are in bed. I squeeze in time at night and on my non-teaching days to work on my art.

Because I am not a studio-based artist, that “studio” time for me looks very different. It will involve taking care of administrative duties related to the arts and/or carefully coordinating my team members from across multiple countries in the making of my works. I do not sew my garments myself and I am often working in collaboration with many others including tailors, fabricators, project managers and other photographers and filmmakers.

Because I think about religion and politics a lot, it can feel pretty heavy and intense within my own process. On good days when I want time off, I will turn to K-drama or Netflix to watch something that is a “brain dead” movie or episodic series; watching popular TV or sci-fi movies is my escape and nourishment. It’s my love of pop culture and attempt to reach an “everyday” audience that also helps to ground my work so that it doesn’t become too cerebral and elitist. There’s an uncanny familiarity that I often employ in my work which is a direct result from my consumption of popular culture.

Could you describe your studio and how it has evolved over the years to become what it is today? What do you enjoy about it, and what do you wish to improve? (If it is possible, it would also be great to have a couple of images showing your workspace.)

Well, I do have a physical studio – a kind of “she-shed” space that has become my studio space to store some of my garments and where I go to organise things. I don’t spend a lot of time inside a “studio” unless it is to physically prepare the items for an exhibition. As an artist, I have never been able to quietly create works inside a studio space. That is a luxury I have never had. Instead, my works are performances taken into the streets, rice fields, classrooms, hawker stands, subways and bus stations —energetic sites where everyday people and daily life occur.

My “studio” is actually a much bigger area of space due to a transnational way of working and realizing projects between Asia and the US. My works are projects that take years to realize and require a team of people – photographers, videographers, tailors, assistants, child caretakers, local community members specific to each site, local fixers, translators, local performers and courageous presenters who champion the work.

With the Fulbright Fellowship in 2011, you returned to work in Phnom Penh to research creation mythologies in contemporary Khmer performance. What was the motivation for this project, what was the experience like, and how did it then inform your practice in general?

With my Fulbright research project, I saw a chance to fold everyday people who encountered me from my tuktuk drivers to the deported community of Cambodian Americans to local artists into a conversation about contemporary Khmer identity. I simply wanted to have conversations about how each of them came into being. I was interested in an ethnographic approach in which I could interview contemporary Khmer people to ask them about their birthing stories and then move into questions about their hopes and dreams for their future. What I realised while engaged in the interviews, was that a lot of local Khmer people did not know how to answer this question: what do you imagine for yourself in the future? This is when I started to recognise the importance of imagination and the critical role of helping people to unlock their imagination and to think beyond what is in front of them. In many ways, this research led directly to my own work and the development of many of my performance personas and performance projects including ‘The Buddhist Bug’, ‘The Red Chador’, ‘The Public Square’, ‘The White Mother’, the ‘Enter’ series and the ‘Vertigo Dress’. I have continuously been interested in having direct encounters with “everyday” people because I desire a chance to bring people into the conversation of contemporary art, knowing very well that many of these same people do not go to cultural institutions, galleries, museums and spaces where contemporary art typically happens.

What do you think were the unique advantages and disadvantages you had when you were an emerging artist working in America, and with establishing your place since then? Would you be able to comment on how you think this compares to the set of opportunities and challenges that diasporic (Cambodian/Southeast Asian/other) artists have in America today?

Being an artist in America, especially if you are not located in New York City and Los Angeles, is very difficult — you go unnoticed for a very long time and remain “emerging” for decades. There are many gatekeepers to the art world in America and it is difficult to enter these spaces because they have historically excluded BIPOC artists. For example, I am the first Cambodian American and Cham Muslim to ever be presented at The Seattle Art Museum in its 91-year history as an institution. In such a large country like America, imagine how many more artists of colour have been excluded and/or have never shown these institutions. It’s a big problem in the U.S., and it is something some institutions are finally addressing as diversity, equity and inclusion movements are challenging these frameworks. Of course, I think as a BIPOC artist in America, the bigger challenge is to make sure we are seen as more than just a “diversity” effort for these institutions — how can we be taken seriously for our work which is often a lot more complex and nuanced beyond just being about “identity”? I feel like I get a lot more respect and dignity showing outside of the U.S., especially in the Asia-Pacific region, because it feels like the rest of the world can move beyond the hyper-racialised identity issues in America. Here in America, identity can be a kind of quagmire that the institutions get stuck in and then try to pigeon-hole individuals, despite their resistance to it.

Exhibition View from "Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence” at Seattle Asian Art Museum. Photo by Scott Leen. Image courtesy of Seattle Art Museum. — Exhibition View from ‘Anida Yoeu Ali: Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence’ at Seattle Asian Art Museum. Photo by Scott Leen. Image courtesy of Seattle Art Museum.

What has become easier or more difficult to do as an artist, as time has gone by? You could anchor your observations through specific examples, such as with the process for holding your current solo exhibition at Seattle Art Museum.

I want to say it becomes easier as you age but that’s not true. The path of an artist is not at all easy. It is not economically sustainable and I want to give up often.

Through it all, I remain persistent and I’ve accepted that I cannot please everyone. I try not to get too worked up by hateful comments or critics of the work because it’s always easier for people to tear down rather than build up.

I spend a lot of time sketching, researching, actively witnessing, creating visual boards, location scouting and thinking about the political moment in relationship to location or a specific sites. Every iteration of a performance takes this into account – which performance work gets enacted in certain spaces.

What does the moment require of me?

Do I have joy when making this work or conceiving this persona?

How do I create a relevant and visually impactful work that can transcend borders and reach a wide range of people without saying a word?

In what ways does the political moment intersect with my desire to create beautiful aesthetically pleasing–but politically agitative–works?

How can I take cultural institutions, museums, galleries, or contemporary art itself to the people?

How can I fold regular ol’ folks (everyday people from a range of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds and ages) into the conversation on contemporary art?

How can I expose more people to contemporary art and performance who don’t typically go to museums, galleries and theaters?

What do you think has been/is your purpose? How has it kept you going, or at times, how has it been challenging to push against boundaries in order to keep your focus? How has your purpose remained steadfast or evolved over the years?

Performance is always unpredictable and I love that. Take a dash of risk, a whole lot of courage and a little bit of spontaneous thinking in the moment – this cannot be predicted or practiced. I learn with every iteration.

I have created my works at great risk. During my performances, I have been threatened, silenced, detained, egged, shoved, belittled, stripped searched, shouted and spat at, and attacked with a windshield wiper. My works have been vandalised, censored, confiscated, destroyed in a gallery fire, damaged by floods, and eaten by termites. Horrible things have happened to me and my artworks but I have not given up. I have continued to perform and present my works, having full faith that my performances are necessary interventions to reclaim power, occupy public spaces and reimagine a hyper-presence and hyper-visibility for myself and the multiple communities I represent.

Performance for me as an artform is an act of decolonisation: there’s a freedom I feel in performing in public and enacting fantastical mythical heroines that is empowering. Performance allows for a magic of reinventing the self and projecting an alter ego that isn’t imprisoned by oppressive representations. I am aware of the spectacle and my works reclaim the gaze – something which has trapped and dehumanised so many of us and our communities. My work re-centres my body in the conversation with the public which is all done in silence, over time, through various public spaces and with unassuming gestures. My practice is not one of a lone artist quietly making something inside a studio and then revealing it to the world. Instead, my practice relies on others, specifically on orchestrating collaborations and trusting others from people on my team to the everyday people who experience the work.

And ultimately in the end, I have trust in the public. I trust that the public and the universe will provide for me and protect me.

Anida Yoeu Ali, ‘The Red Chador: Genesis I (group portrait)’, 11 September 2021. Photo by Bruce Tom. © Studio Revolt. Image courtesy of the artist.

Could you talk about current/upcoming projects?

I have dreams of completing ‘The Red Chador’ series in a final iteration titled ‘The 99’,in which I create 99 unique chadors (a Muslim headdress) as an haute couture collection sourced from a range of both luxurious and ordinary textiles in Southeast Asia. Each of the 99 chadors will be uniquely created from textiles sourced in the open-air fabric markets of Southeast Asia, specifically from Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam—countries that have all contributed to shaping my ethnic and cultural heritage.

I think expanding what was once just one lonely Red Chador garment into a full collection of 99 chador garments, made of various fibers such as silk, lace, satin, linen, denim, faux fur, tweed and etc. This would also include various patterns from Asian batik, ikat, kimonos to African kente cloths, pok-a-dots to stripes, crazy textured and patterned prints to hello kitty characters, florals to geometrics.

Basically, imagine ‘The Red Chador’ had a walk-in closet and that she can dress beyond just her red sequined chador. The 99 is more than the wardrobe rack and walk-in closet of the Red Chador. In this iteration, The 99 is conceived as a public participatory installation in which museum and gallery patrons have the opportunity to rummage through a rack of 99 chador garments and select which chador they would like to dress in. Realising this iteration would complete the full narrative arc for this series and put this project which has been ongoing for nine years now to a spectacular and fabulous end.

And finally, what would be a key piece of advice to young art practitioners ? What has been your formula for success that they can learn from to apply to their own careers?

Have a life beyond the art, beyond artmaking. Find friends who love and respect you that are not in the art world or connected to your artistic practice at all. Spend time with your family whether it’s your own kids, spouse or your parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, etc., I cannot stress enough that one needs to have something else that connects you to other parts of living and existing that is not art-related. Art is not everything. It’s just one part of who you are. Life is so much bigger than art or making it in the art world. Living a life that has joy, fulfilment, fun —something that reminds you of your own humanity is very grounding and necessary.

Access the full Midpoint series here.