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Living Here

June 20, 2025 - December 20, 2025

East Gallery

Living Here is an exhibition of artists from the East and Southeast Asian diasporas. Featuring artists whose ancestries lie in Cambodia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, this exhibition looks at the way that familiar touchstones—such as food, clothing, and movies—permeate diasporic movement with the sensuous materiality of touch, taste, sight, and sound.

The artists are inspired by personal experiences informed by historical events that have shaped their diasporic identities. Some of them call on their memories of home, remembering favorite activities such as karaoke, reassessing their childhood relationships with their parents from a position of adult maturity, or contemplating the future that awaits their own children. Others employ historical research, considering the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, or the Filipino Rough Riders who traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the late 1800s. The links between past, present, and future are manifested in everyday objects like balikbayan boxes, or in the frustration of English-language autocorrect technology replacing a person’s name with an anglicized alternative.

Artists include Eliza O. Barrios, Ching Ching Cheng, Daieny Chin, Jisoo Chung, Maya Fuji, Sush Machida Gaikotsu, Jeannie Hua, Hue, Phung Huynh, Jeanne F. Jalandoni, Eri King, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, Quindo Miller, Jiha Moon, May Nguyen, Ian Racoma, Michael Rippens, Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David, Jennifer Seo, Stephanie Shih, Stephanie H. Shih, TT Takemoto, Sherwin Rivera Tibayan, Maria Villote, and Christine Wong Yap. The exhibition incorporates oral histories from Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project, a project by the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries.

Living Here was created in consultation with Dr. Constancio Arnaldo, Jean Munson, and Dr. Mark Padoongpatt. The Museum would like to thank the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, Reflections Project Manager Stefani Evans, and Oral History Research Center Director Claytee White; as well as our research assistants Daniela Castañeda and Daniel Taylor.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is generously provided by Evan Louie, Bill Shihara, and the Lieutenant Erik Lloyd Family.

Click here to view the exhibition catalog

Exhibition contents

Artworks

Courtesy of the artists and David B. Smith Gallery

More from this Exhibition

Living Here

  1. 11, 111 by Yumi Janairo Roth, Emmanuel David, Image 1.

    Emmanuel David, Yumi Janairo Roth

    11, 111, 2024

    2-channel video

  2. 11, 111 by Emmanuel David, Yumi Janairo Roth, Image 3.

    Emmanuel David, Yumi Janairo Roth

    11, 111, 2024

    Oil enamel on board; banderitas

    130 panels, variable dimensions

  3. A Word That Doesn't Exist・存在しない言葉 by Maya Fuji, Image 1.

    Maya Fuji

    A Word That Doesn't Exist・存在しない言葉, 2023

    Acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal, and rhinestone on canvas

    16 x 20 x 1.5 in

  4. Americanization by Phung Huynh, Image 1.

    Phung Huynh

    Americanization, 2022

    Mixed media

    44.75 x 71 x 1.75 in

  5. An Auspicious Start to the Year of the Tiger by Stephanie Shih, Image 3.

    Stephanie Shih

    An Auspicious Start to the Year of the Tiger, 2022

    Archival pigment print on bamboo paper, wood panel, varnish, glue, acrylics

    40 x 30 x 1.5 in

  6. And Look! Piña Slippers (Tsinelas) by Jeanne F. Jalandoni, Image 1.

    Jeanne F. Jalandoni

    And Look! Piña Slippers (Tsinelas), 2023

    Oil on canvas, cotton, cotton perle embroidery on piña, machine knits

    12 x 22 in

  7. Angel's Trumpet by Daieny Chin, Image 1.

    Daieny Chin

    Angel's Trumpet, 2024

    Oil on canvas

    30 x 30 in

  8. Anh Ly (Grandmother) by Phung Huynh, Image 1.

    Phung Huynh

    Anh Ly (Grandmother), 2024

    Graphite on pink donut box

    22 x 19 x 2 in

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About the artists

Emmanuel David

Emmanuel David is an interdisciplinary scholar of gender, sexuality, and globalization. He teaches in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. His recent research on gender and sexuality in the Philippines has focused on a wide range of topics, including global call centers, the politics of beauty pageants, sex work and militarism, and contemporary art and performance. David’s scholarship has appeared in ASAP/Journal, Feminist Formations, Gender & Society, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Radical History Review, Sexualities, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, and WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly.

Yumi Janairo Roth

Yumi Janairo Roth has created a diverse body of work that explores ideas of immigration, hybridity, and displacement through discrete objects and site-responsive installations, solo projects and collaborations. She received a BA in anthropology from Tufts University, a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and an MFA from the State University of New York-New Paltz. She currently lives and works in Boulder, Colorado where she is a professor of sculpture and post studio practice at the University of Colorado. Roth has exhibited and participated in artist residencies in Asia, Europe, and the United States.