Where did you grow up, and how did you end up living where you are now?

I grew up between Los Angeles and Chiang Mai. Both felt like disembodied experiences. The sense of dislocation became really formative for me early on...addictive even. It’s why I still have trouble living anywhere.

What ideas were you thinking about when you were working on this video?

I’ve been thinking a lot about multistable perception: how schizophrenic it feels to be alive right now, how paranoia distorts our sense of time and scale, how to find agency in such a vulnerable state.

The mobius strip has been very present in my mind recently because it frames disorientation as a non-binary project. Over quarantine I’ve been writing a couple narrative film projects that use it as a structure. It has been really satisfying developing characters, storylines, and dialogue that subtly cannibalizes itself.

What issues do you feel the AAPI community will be most impacted by as a result of this election?

I find it impossible to rank impact at a time when it feels like everyone is at risk. My work has always focused more on the pervasive psychological affects of structural violence. Currently I feel invested in paranoia.

How do you think artists of AAPI descent can have their voices heard, particularly in this moment of increased racism against Asian-Americans?

I’ve been meeting with a lot of AAPI filmmakers recently which has inspired me to just start filming the scenes I want to see even if I haven’t yet acquired the resources for the full project. This short scene is from a mini-series I’m writing about two friends on a cross country roadtrip. It’s like the 16mm non-binary qazn anthem I never had. The entire cast and crew was qpoc which made all the joy and laughter on set feel really political.

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