“Within the human body and the body of a book, the appendix is considered extraneous. This is not unlike the personal and historical trauma buried in cultural memories. In lucid moments of stress or pain, this organ and its unread cultural histories push their way into significance, carrying weight on an overlooked past, present and future.”
This is the powerful description given by Diana Li and Erina C Alejo — fellows of the Asian American Women Artists Association — for “Appendix”, an exhibit they are curating at the Pacific Heritage Museum in San Francisco. Featuring the work of ten Asian American women and queer artists local to northern California, “Appendix” will explore the artists’ narratives of trauma — physical, mental, emotional and historical — and their efforts to dissect, reclaim, and empower the intergenerational memories of their personal and our collective experience(s).
