Love, Loss, and Laban

My artwork is a playlist dedicated to the stories of love, loss, and laban ("struggle") of the queer Filipino American activists who spoke at the roundtable event on the 23rd of May. I was inspired very deeply by the experiences and reflections shared by these incredible people, recounting how they tried to find themselves, live their truth, and build an unbreakable community through extreme struggle in a hostile world. The idea for this playlist was sparked by Napoleon Lustre's perspective on the future, wondering openly if "anybody gives a fuck about what we went through," and posing the question of how to bring justice and redress to their experiences. This really stuck with me as one of many people in today's America who want passionately to make a change for ourselves and our communities, but feel intimidated by continued hostility, indifference, and what seem to be impossible odds.

The medium of expression for this piece is quite experimental, especially for me as an artist, and I take a risk of hubris in that I can never truly claim to capture the depth or profoundness of our activists' experiences through songs alone. However, although I do not have a definite answer to Napoleon's question, I've made my best attempt at showcasing foundational concepts of an answer by collating a series of songs and art I've encountered in my personal life as an Asian American youth. Some are lighthearted and upbeat, some are profoundly melancholic, and some lie intentionally in-between, but I believe they all contribute to a diverse and identity-rooted exploration of love, loss, and struggle through a gay, lesbian, trans, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Asian American, intersectional, and most of all human lens. The power of the art pieces I utilise in their deep representations of our communities' experiences are not diluted, but actually amplified by their "trendy" and contemporary nature. By drawing from "modern" music tastes and storytelling mediums, I hope to reflect at least somewhat the aesthetics, symbols, and values of my developing generation of changemakers. Although paying homage to and also paying forward the profundity of our HIV/AIDS activists' experiences is a dynamic and continuing process, I hope that the thematic throughlines I present in this work can help inform our collective approach, and substantively answer Napoleon's question of "whether anybody gives a fuck" with a resounding "YES!"