The University of Michigan Museum of Art opened their newest exhibition “Strange You Never Knew” Feb. 1, reflecting on the Asian-American diaspora, family and identity. Chinese American artist Jarod Lew’s first solo exhibition is composed of three series of photographs and a multimedia installation. 

The exhibit opens with Lew’s photo series “Please Take Off Your Shoes,” which includes portraits of second-generation Asian Americans in their parents’ homes. The series’ title refers to the widespread practice in Asian culture of removing one’s shoes before entering a home. These photographs highlight the dual identities the second-generation community must navigate, often believing that they are perceived as “American” by their immigrant parents but “Asian” outside of their domestic spaces.

Angela Chen, assistant professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design and the exhibit’s tour guide, said in an interview with The Daily that Lew’s work is representative of both the individual families documented and  a broader narrative about Asian American households.

“All of the objects, they feel so particular to this particular family and, at the same time, there is a way in which the way we present ourselves, and what we learn about ourselves, is not just from our immediate family but from these larger histories and people’s projections of us,” Chen said. “There’s something about how there’s not just what happens in your private life, but it’s all sort of connected to larger political histories.”

Jennifer Friess, the associate curator of photography and associate director of curatorial affairs at UMMA, told The Michigan Daily Lew aims to prompt viewers to think about family, community and heritage through the exhibition.

“I think he’s very keen to step back and say, ‘OK, I’ve given you this content, now you take away what feels important to you,’” Friess said. “I think that’s really a sincere way of allowing people to ask, ‘Do you have a connection? Do you see yourself in these images? Do you see your family? Are you thinking about your own family’s experience and history in a critical way?’ He just opens doors.”

Another series in the exhibit, titled “In Between You and Your Shadow,” is made up of photos of Lew’s family in their domestic spaces. Lew tells the audience of his mother’s engagement to Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who was killed by two white autoworkers that sparked a wave of protests for Asian American civil rights.

Chen reflected on the title of the exhibition, “Strange You Never Knew,” by connecting it to Lew’s discovery later in life that his mother had been engaged to Chin.

“I think it’s really important that (the exhibit is) photographic, because the way that (Lew) learned about this history was not really through, initially, dialogue with his mom,” Chen said. “It was through reading news articles and seeing photographs, like journalistic photographs, that had his family members in them. And so there’s this way that his relationship or his knowledge or his experience of this story was first through photographs.”

Neil Van Houten, assistant director of operations at UMMA, said going through the exhibition evoked memories of his own family, specifically Lew’s photo series on his mother. 

“A lot of the images that just have to do with family and relationships really resonated with me,” Van Houten said. “I mean, for me, just even the one photograph that’s the plate of fruit that (Lew’s mother) cut, with a little note to her children, almost moved me to tears. It was just kind of very personal and very beautiful, and made me think of things my mother did for me.”

In the third photo series titled, “Mimicry,” Lew manipulates found snapshots of generic, white suburban families by superimposing his face upon each of the figures in the photographs. Lew comments on the lack of Asian American representation in American memory, using “Mimicry” to subvert harmful Asian American stereotypes.

Chen said this series emphasized the performativity of race and the resistance with which Lew fights back against it in his art.

“There’s this commentary about how those slides are about the caricature of performing a certain racial identity, and Jarod’s work is like the antithesis of that,” Chen said.

In the exhibit’s multimedia installation titled, “The New Challengers Strike Back,” Lew utilizes two television screens, one of which plays a loop of 1980s news footage showing Japanese cars being bashed. The second monitor, positioned across from the first, offers visitors the chance to play a bonus level from Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, in which the player can smash a car. This juxtaposition is meant to emphasize the interconnectedness of cultural conflicts and Detroit’s economic struggles after the downturn of the motor industry.

LSA senior Nicole Shumsky, an UMMA gift shop employee, told The Daily UMMA’s choice to display exhibitions that focus on marginalized communities can resonate with the University’s diverse student body. 

“I think in our society, we kind of try to cover up these topics,” Shumsky said. “So I think it’s really important, especially through art, to show these blocks that we build the community with. There’s a lot of different communities in (the University) as well, especially with the Asian population. I feel like it’s important to represent that.”

Van Houten told The Daily that he thinks the exhibition leaves the audience to consider the concepts of identity, race and community in the United States. 

“I think some of the things that it’s asking us to think about are just definitions of family and community, shared experience, those kinds of things,” Van Houten said. “Another is to sort of think about what it means to be ‘other’ in the United States, to be not (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) American, but to be Asian American in this country where we have a tendency to ‘other’ people.” 

Daily Staff Reporter Sophie Frank can be reached at sophieaf@umich.edu.

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