QUEER, IDENTITY AND FAMILY
2022
QUEER, IDENTITY, AND FAMILY
Role: Photographer, Videographer, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Game Designer
Deliverables and Mediums:
Graphic Design
Photography/Videography
Illustration
This one-semester project is a collective work from DMST 103: Essential Digital Media Toolkit class at the University of Rochester. The themes being explored in these projects are queerness, toxic masculinity, family, feelings and the experience growing up as a gay Asian guy.
1. DETOX MASCULINITY - DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY & STUDIO LIGHTING
DETOX MASCULINITY, right in its name, is to detoxify toxic masculinity, challenging the term by showing the reverse of a set of attitudes and ways of behaving stereotypically that society expects of men and women. Based on my personal stories growing up in a country where women's rights are not fully recognized and observance I collected throughout childhood, I want to use my visual creativity to address this problem in a very playful and colorful way!
If there was a hackathon for photography within 70 hours, I think I did a great job in this competition. For the first time, I challenged myself to art direct a photography project about a problem I grew up with, withholding ever since I was in middle school until I reached high school: toxic masculinity. The period from pre-production phase to post-production phase was all wrapped up in one week. I spent 1 day brainstorming the ideas for the 7 photos within the series, briefly sketching and outlining in Procreate and Pinterest. Once I finalized the prop list, I started contacting my friends to model and help me find the props needed for the shoot. Ultimately, it took me 3 days in Rettner Video Studio to design the sets and turn my vision into reality. Special Thanks to Professor Kristana of the DMS Department for helping me along the way!
2. MY FAVORITE FEELINGS - VIDEOGRAPHY & CINEMATIC ARTS
The video is a medley of all my filmmaking works as well as a sequence of all my favorite experiences and activities that give me the feeling of warmth, happiness, and joy. How I embrace my identity and self-love is through the small moments I have in everyday life.
When I found out I was queer 5 years ago, I went through a full-on gay crisis that detached me from distinguishing between what is “abnormal” and “normal”, what is “right” and “wrong” love. Some friends of mine betrayed me for knowing who I really am and reality dawns that some expectations are to remain unfulfilled within my family forever. I fell into a listless, depressive state: everything, from leaves on branches to fruits in the market, appeared colorless and drained. The world became ugly in my eyes as the constant fear of being abandoned by the one I love and the question of whether I should exist kept perpetuating. I’d even rejected my own identity.
I think inevitably every human being tends to strive for a sense of purpose and meaning as to why we’re here and why we exist. By rediscovering what I loved about my identity through exploring my innate talent in the visual arts, I found I could control how I sought out and captured beauty. Instead of hiding from the world’s ugliness, I began to use my art to stay in touch with the emotions that soothed, motivated, and rewarded me. I realized that true happiness is about the small joys that I experience in everyday life that can have a cumulative effect on how I feel satisfied with myself and being able to bring them on film has been my personal meaning as to why I exist.
3. THE SHEEP - PHOTOGRAMMETRY & 3D MODEL PROCESSING
A friend of mine used to give me this sheep model as my 15th birthday gift. When I bragged about it to my father, he seemed very unsatisfied and would explained how it was such a colorful gift to give to a male friend. I became very upset and could not understand why he acted that way. This project is so much tied with the topic of toxic masculinity and social expectation on what a man should own or behave.
4. FAMILY'S EXPECTATION - GRAPHIC DESIGN & LASER CUT PRINTING
Most Asian cultures are predominantly collectivistic in nature, where the individual is tied with the group identity while the notion of independent self is often deemphasized. As a Vietnamese, how I was brought up has pushed me to prioritize the desires of my family over my personal needs and goals. Whatever we do has to benefit off each other in the long run, and how a person presents themselves to others can reflect their family’s social standing, education, reputation and belief.
Ever since I was born, one of the greatest wishes my parents had for me and my siblings was to marry the right person. “Wow, he's so handsome. You guys as parents must be so picky about your daughter-in-law in the future”, “A man’s mission is to continue his family’s last name and save the face of your generation” - those Asian ladies giggled with my mom and dad without knowing that I’m gay. Imagining the future of coming out to parents of generation X would scare me to death. How they show their unconditional love and care has brought me both warmth and happiness but it also made me feel cramped as their greatest desire of me marrying a beautiful woman will never be completed. The scenario of me coming out as an individual would be considered to be selfish, placed in the Asian collective society and it would lose my family’s face to the surrounding community.
5. QUEER TRAIN - MINI TWINE GAME CODING
https://fintrann.github.io/DMST103-Twine-Game/queertrain.html
