Artist Talk: Jarod Lew in Conversation with Helen Zia

Join us for an artist talk with photographer Jarod Lew, whose work is featured in Kinship: Photography and Connection, on view from May 20–November 12, 2023, on Floor 3. Lew will be in conversation with activist, journalist, and author Helen Zia.

This event is presented in partnership with the Center for Asian American Media, as part of CAAMFest 41.
 
SFMOMA + CAAMFest Happy Hour
4 p.m.–6 p.m.

After the talk, join us for happy hour at SFMOMA’s newest restaurant ‘grace‘ from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. There will be a cash bar, small bites, and snacks will be provided. Guests attending Artist Talk: Jarod Lew in Conversation with Helen Zia will receive a complimentary drink voucher (to be distributed on-site, while supplies last).

About the speakers

Jarod Lew is a Chinese American artist and photographer currently based in Metro Detroit, Michigan. His work explores themes of identity, community, and displacement. His most recent project, Please Take off Your Shoes, addresses the contradictions inherent to constructions of Asian American identity and examines images of Asian subjects and objects within the suburban American landscape. The series was inspired by the shocking discovery that his mother was the fiancé of Vincent Chin, who was murdered in 1982 by two autoworkers in Highland Park, Michigan, and whose death helped spark a push for Asian American rights.

Helen Zia is an award winning journalist, activist, and Fulbright Scholar. A former executive editor of Ms. Magazine, she chronicles the emergence of AAPIs in her book Asian American Dreams (2000); her book on physicist Wen Ho Lee’s ordeal fighting the FBI’s false accusations of espionage have been replicated against many more innocent Asian Americans; her latest book, Last Boat out of Shanghai (2019), is an NPR “Best Book.” The daughter of immigrants from China, Zia’s lead role countering anti-Asian violence is featured in Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1987 documentary film. In 2010, she was a witness in the federal case for marriage equality. After college, she dropped out of medical school to be a community organizer, construction laborer, and autoworker, after which she discovered her life’s work as a writer.