What is LTS?
Listen to the Silence is Stanford's annual Asian American issues conference organized by an LTS Team under the Asian American Students' Association (AASA). LTS began in 1995 out of the need to increase the visibility of Asian American issues and to educate those in the community and beyond about the conditions of the Asian American community. The conference goals have since expanded to include the empowerment of Asian American students to take direct action to improve their communities and work towards collective liberation. Ultimately, the Listen to the Silence conference aims to provide tangible tools and resources to inspire, educate, and empower participants to work towards creating a more equitable and fair society as part of the broader movement for social justice.
2023 THEME: Art + Activism = Artivism
Artivism, or artistic activism, is the theme for this year’s annual Listen to the Silence conference. The complex entanglement of social movements and art can be traced back throughout history, transcending cultural isolation and serving as a framework for transnational and international solidarity. We will explore the intersection of art and activism in its relationship to Asian American identity and resistance and its potential to lay the foundations for cross-cultural understanding and uplifting all communities.
From the solidarity work between Chicano and Pilipino farm workers during the United Farm Workers movement to combating anti-Blackness within the model minority myth, art is a diverse medium to uplift and share the voices of oppressed and marginalized groups, bridge movements, recognize communities, and break down social and structural barriers. We will conclude the conference with a cultural fashion show hosted by Asian Women’s Alliance called “Walks of Asia,” which will be produced by Stanford’s all-star team of Asian & Asian American women artists and creatives.
We hope that through this conference, by investigating art and the driving force behind it, we build a framework for sustainable and continued cross-community relations.
From the solidarity work between Chicano and Pilipino farm workers during the United Farm Workers movement to combating anti-Blackness within the model minority myth, art is a diverse medium to uplift and share the voices of oppressed and marginalized groups, bridge movements, recognize communities, and break down social and structural barriers. We will conclude the conference with a cultural fashion show hosted by Asian Women’s Alliance called “Walks of Asia,” which will be produced by Stanford’s all-star team of Asian & Asian American women artists and creatives.
We hope that through this conference, by investigating art and the driving force behind it, we build a framework for sustainable and continued cross-community relations.
Speakers
Tori Hong
Visual Artist Tori Ntxoo Hong (she/they) is a self-educated queer, Hmong, and Korean American freelance illustrator based in San Francisco. Through digital and analog art, Tori shares radical affirmations for a more just + loving world. Since 2017 Tori has been internationally published in Mannschaft Magazin; developed a K-12 Asian arts curriculum with the Minneapolis Institute of Art; and worked with local, national, and international movements for democracy. This fall, Tori will pursue her MFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. |
Arshia Haq
Editor, Producer Arshia Fatima Haq (born in Hyderabad, India) works across film, visual art, performance, and sound. She works through counterachives and speculative narratives, and is currently exploring themes of embodiment, mysticism, indigenous and localized knowledge within the context of Sufism. She is the founder of Discostan, a collaborative decolonial project and record label working with cultural production from South and West Asia and North Africa. She hosts and produces monthly radio shows on NTS. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at museums, galleries, nightclubs, and in the streets, and has been featured at MOMA New York, Hammer Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Broad Museum, LACE, Toronto International Film Festival, Centre Georges Pompidou, NPR, and the Pacific Film Archive amongst others. She received her MFA in Film and Video from California Institute of the Arts in and is currently based in Los Angeles. |
Chriz Naing
Film Editor, Director Chriz Naing was born and raised in Yangon, Burma. His upbringing in Burma, Australia and America has shaped him into a multicultural artist - gravitating towards storytelling with directors across the globe. His work as a film editor and a cinematographer has been showcased at Tribeca Film Festival, LA Shorts Fest, Austin Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Edmonton International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker. His first film, Zayar, won Best Student Film at the 2016 Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival. He is also a music composer with a passion for the colors of sound. He graduated from New York University Film & TV in 2014 |
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Professor, Psychologist Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu expresses activism through teaching and writing on themes of personal and social transformation. His "Heartfulness" work offers gentle, mindful spaces where people come together in healing community circles, compassionately crossing borders within us and between ourselves and others. Contemplative, healing arts rooted in Japanese spiritual traditions and psychology provide the ground from which gratitude, humility, and a sense of service spring forth. His diverse transnational heritage and cultural experience is embodied as "The Celtic Samurai," and expressed in storytelling, oral and written. |