with guest, Rita Bunrayong, BA Art History at the University of Victoria
My goal for this project was to learn from the experience of my friend, Rita, who immigrated to Canada from Thailand at age ten, pursuing her art career. I wanted to take advantage of the unique podcast format and gain a personal insight into what types of structural and social barriers are faced as an Asian artist in the so-called “diverse” Canada. To prepare for our recorded discussion, I brainstormed with Rita and used that as a jumping-off point for some more thorough research. I read academic and non-academic articles on Asian art representation in North America, art landscapes in various Asian cities and countries, political and historical landscapes of Thailand, and particular forms of art and artists with Asian heritage. The podcast medium in particular is great for sharing and learning about topics with a casual tone, often based on personal experiences expressed in a vignette, story-telling type of style. I believe that this makes it valuable in activism efforts and social causes because it helps audiences form a more personal connection and understanding to a given issue/topic. For that reason, a lot of my research was not necessarily explicitly referenced in the final edit of our discussion, rather I chose to focus on Rita’s stories and opinions, often using the background research to help with prompts and so that I could feel assured I was educated on various items that could have come up in our discussion. The discussion was approximately 1.5 hours long after initial cuts, and ended up being 25 minutes, five minutes over the requested time. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with Rita on this, and I personally learned a lot –and I hope that it is an insightful, meaningful, and provocative listen.
More on Rita Bunrayong:
