Publication
2023, Published on LIKE A FEVER
Furen Dai charts shifts in language within US census forms across several decades, which speak to larger social transformations.
“In response to the prompt for this series on naming, I was thinking about a passage from Trinh Minh-ha’s elsewhere, within here: “From one category, one label to another, the only way to survive is to refuse. Refuse to become an Integra table element. Refuse to allow names arrived at transitionally to become stabilized..."
This project gathers information from the US National Archives and the US Census Bureau, consulting original census forms, enumerator manuals, and census data. The initial Federal Population Census was conducted in 1790, and subsequent censuses, with updated language, have been conducted every ten years. Every decade of social contextual evolution has been compressed and incorporated, resulting in subtle changes in the language within the forms—including alterations in punctuation, pronouns, and the introduction of additional choices, among other aspects.”
LIKE A FEVER is Asia Art Archive's online publishing platform of art and cultural criticism—moody, obsessive, and oriented towards cure.
Co-founders and Editors
Paul C. Fermin, Koel Chu, Andrea Chu
Editorial Intern
Jocelin Kee
2021, Edited by Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam
Published by Paper Monument
With Contributions By:
Aily Nash and Sylvia Schedelbauer, Ajay Kurian, Alexander Lau, Anicka Yi, Anne Anlin Cheng, Anoka Faruqee, Aruna D’Souza, Asad Raza, Brendan Fernandes, Brian Kuan Wood, Byron Kim, C. Spencer Yeh, Candice Lin, Cathy Park Hong, Celine Wong Katzman, CFGNY, Chitra Ganesh and Sung Hwan Kim, Chris Wu, Christine Y. Kim, Dawn Chan, Furen Dai, Hera Chan, Herb Tam, Holly Shen, Hồng-Ân Trương, Howie Chen, Hyperlink Press, Iftikhar Dadi, J Fan, j.p. mot, Jean Shin, Jen Liu, Jesse Chun, Jessica Hong, Jia Tolentino, John Tain, John Yau, Josh Kline, Ka-Man Tse, Ken Lum, Kenneth Tam, Kim Nguyen, Luke Luokun Cheng, Lumi Tan, Maia Chao, Marc Handelman, Marci Kwon, Margaret Lee, Martha Tuttle, Martin Wong, Mary Lum, Matthew Shen Goodman, Megha Ralapati, Mel Chin, Michelle Lopez, Mimi Wong, Mo Kong, Naeem Mohaiemen and Yara El-Sherbini, Pamela M. Lee, Patrick Jaojoco, Patty Chang, Paul Pfeiffer, Philip Poon, Prem Krishnamurthy, Ralph Pugay, Sarah McCaffery, Zheng Shengtian, WangShui, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Tausif Noor, Vinay Hira, Yayoi Shionoiri, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
This collection of seventy-three letters written in 2020 captures an unprecedented moment in politics and society through the experiences of Asian-American artists, curators, educators, art historians, editors, writers, and designers. The form of the letteroffers readers intimate insights into the complexities of Asian American experiences, moving beyond the model-minority myth. Chronicling everyday lives, dreams, rage, family histories, and cultural politics, these letters ignite new ways of being, and modes of creating, at a moment of racial reckoning.
2020/2021
Furen Dai & Yann Martin, Text by Louisa Nyman
Published by Edizione Multicolore
In their publication Furen, Louise and Yann investigate the forms of adaptation that wildness will develop to overcome the control that an “automated wildness” imposes on them.
Examining the ethical questions that occur when relying on algorithmic decision-making to manage ecosystems, they want to understand how machines decide what a “valued” life is. They want to raise awareness of who decides for other non-human life forms and the lack of negotiation that will emerge when algorithmic conservation takes all the decisions without human feedback.
2020, in collaboration with Daniela Stubbs-Leví and published by current press.
HOUSEWORK 2021 is a planner ledger, that serves both as a way to document daily activities and all the housework done at home. We created charts with a variety of house chores, each with an assigned code that will be used to track activities and calculate housework wages. This one-year calendar format was designed to speak to the longevity, repetition, and consistency needed in the household duty. The work’s goal is to point out the failure of not attributing the label of labor to housework and instead, portraying it as labor of care and love.
