A mask and kimono, worn during my performance by the same title , hang stretched on bamboo. A monitor loops the 24-minute performance. The kimono is painted white outside and gold inside.

The performance and installation address the layers of externally imposed expectations of behavior, conflicting internal identities, and the performance of self. Beauty, belonging, American-ness, Japanese-ness, quiet or silenced, sexuality, cultural pride, and trauma, including the objectification and fetishization of the Asian femme bodies.

Towards the end of the performance, the audience is silently invited to paint the faceless Asian woman white.

Autonomy stripped away as layers of paint, projections, violations, and objectification are caked on. It’s suffocating. But is it? I claim and own my autonomy, governing the rules and expectations of the performance and audience experience.

The viewer is positioned to feel enveloped by the hovering entity, yet the body herself is conspicuously absent.