The work of Eduardo Sarabia is known for the staging and documentation of partly fabricated and mythical narratives, and its usage of subculture imagery, hand-made crafts and complex situations. Born in East L.A. of Mexican descent, he has been in close contact with plenty of experiences associated with drug smuggling, confusing explanations of facts and contact with the use of different means like songs, objects, tattoos, just to name a few, that narrate histories in the making, negotiations of meaning.

This film captures the power of faith in the face of danger, illustrated in the famous Old Testament story of Daniel in the lions' den and in Peter Paul Rubens' full-scale painting at the National Gallery. Daniel's travail in a closed cave unfolds here through a series of comparative frames: Rubens' preparatory drawings, painted lions with human bones at their feet, and footage of actual lions, similar to those Rubens saw at the royal menagerie in Brussels.

Artist Ken Aptekar discusses his work I Hate the Name Kenneth and approaches to assimilation.
(Interview: 2008)

Thailand’s Loi Krathong festival is held on the full moon night of the twelfth lunar month (usually in November) and involves floating offerings along waterways. A banana-leaf cup drifting down the stream carries away ill-fortune and honors the River Goddess. The ritual is believed to have strong ties to Buddhism. You can’t go to Thailand, but you can still celebrate this peaceful tradition at MATCHA with live music and dance by Thai Cultural Center.

Years after campaigns against minority Armenians in Turkey caused his family to disperse and his mother to die before his eyes, Gorky found a 1912 photograph taken in the city of Van upon which he based drawings and paintings entitled The Artist and His Mother. The video Ararat (Excerpts) investigates the fraught history of Gorky's lost childhood through his protracted work on the image of himself at age 12, standing beside his mother Shushan. Derived from the feature-length film Ararat written and directed by Academy Award®-nominated director Atom Egoyan.

Digitized from VHS, this video re-tells a popular Korean folktale using a beautiful Korean screen from the collection of the Asian Art Museum.

Explore the festival of one of the most popular forms of the Goddess--Durga.

Asian Art Museum Art Speak interns create books (from the paper to the binding to the content) based on their perspectives on place and identity.