The current pandemic has underscored not only anti-Asian racism but also emphasised that economic and social stratifications still fall largely along the lines of race. Systemic and institutional racism has managed to disenfranchise people-of-colour successfully; the art world is not the exception of these conditions.

Our silence, as people of colour with Asian backgrounds, in history has played its part to fulfil the myth of being the “model minority” — a term used as a racial wedge to divide Asians and other people of colour. In addition, the silence has resulted in wider invisibility of the struggles of Asian people that have been forgotten or ignored in the mainstream art history and institutional narratives. How can we challenge the present situations and open up our conversations in order to bring further understanding of transnational alliances with artistic and activistic practices?

Mai Ling Speaks #4 invites two guests, Annie Jael Kwan and Nikita Yinqqian Choi, who are actively dealing with these topics within their projects.
In her audio broadcast, Annie Jael Kwan talks about Asia-Art-Activism: how she co-founded Asia-Art-Activism and how they are developing its activities and cross-disciplinary networks of artists, curators and academics investigating “Asia”, “art” and “activism” in the UK and internationally through research, dialogue, practice and collective works. She also reflected on how Asia-Art-Activism has responded and kept the community connected under the current global pandemic and restricted conditions.（She recorded her talk in August under quarantine in Singapore after her travel from Japan.）
Nikita Yinqqian Choi, the curator at the Guangzhou Times Art Museum in China, presents a visual statement that encompasses an imaginary encounter of three artists: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982), Pan Yuliang (1895–1977), and Trinh T. Minh-ha (b. 1952). The story unfolds within their transnational journeys by revisiting their biographies, documentations, texts, performances and films and touches on the multiple voices and struggles of female artists through generations with the intricate relationship with the past, present, and future.