ANNOUNCEMENT: DVAN Online

The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network is finally online! DVAN's aim is "to promote artists from the Vietnamese diaspora whose work in literature, visual art, film, and performance art enriches our communities and strengthens ties between Vietnamese across the globe. We undertake to support this body of work through cultural events, exhibits, conferences and publications that explore the connections between art and society."

The website features upcoming events and shows --of which there are many, such as the upcoming TransPOP symposium at UC Berkeley on Valentine's Day, take a date!-- and works by artists with links to their galleries online. The website promises to become a portal for connecting to and with Vietnamese artists across the diaspora (their scope in international), so bookmark this one!

CFP: Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora

The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network is soliciting submissions for a collection called Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. From the call:

The literature of Southeast Asian women within the diaspora is marginalized in mainstream cultures. When visible, our writings are often misunderstood as stereotypical representations of purity, pathos, folklore, or matrilineal caricature. As activists, writers, and scholars, we are committed to bringing together a truly unique collection of voices by Southeast Asian women who trace their ancestry to Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma/Myanmar, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei or East Timor, and whose stories have yet to be told or visualized. We would also like to hear from women of minority groups, like the ethnic Chinese and Indians throughout Southeast Asia, and the Mien, Hmong, and Cham, who are located in many regions of the world. As the book’s subtitle suggests [Troubling Borders in Literature and Art], we hope the collection will question the concept of national borders and the boundaries of literature and art.

Because we envision this anthology will feature importantly in classroom curricula, we are looking for pieces that speak to broad themes and concerns relating but not limited to questions of youth, generational difference, nationality, identity, gender, sexuality, and class. We are soliciting submissions of various genres: short stories, poems, fiction, personal essays, and artwork.

The deadline is December 19, 2008.

Download the full CFP here.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and greater Los Angeles, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) is a new organization composed of academics, artists, and organizers committed to advancing Vietnamese American art and to bringing Vietnamese cultural productions from the diaspora to the United States.