What does it mean to be of mixed race in America? A new book and exhibition aim to answer
Bonnie Tsui, Los Angeles TimesApril 6, 2018 Natalie Coughlin and Nathan Adrian are best known as world swimming champions — Coughlin as a 12-time Olympic medalist and the first woman to swim the 100-meter backstroke in under a minute, and Adrian as an eight-time Olympic medalist and a top freestyle sprinter for the U.S. national…
Morikami Museum Traces Trials and Taboos of Japanese Tattoos
Phillip Valys, South Florida Sun Sentinel February 24, 2016 Kip Fulbeck has been hassled in hotels, criticized in gyms and mocked in bathhouses for showing too much of his body, a tattooed canvas for fire-breathing dragons, Buddhist goddesses of mercy and other bold Japanese motifs. Fulbeck caught the bulk of this ridicule while living in…
Multiracial Identity: Study Looks at Role of Money, Gender and Religion
Emanuella Grinberg, CNN January 28, 2016 For Kip Fulbeck, the son of an American father and Cantonese mother, identity is all about context. Growing up in Southern California, among his Taiwanese and Chinese relatives he was the white kid who didn’t speak their language, appreciate their food or understand their customs. At public school in…
Choose Your Own Identity
Bonnie Tsui, The New York Times December 14, 2015 I never realized how little I understood race until I tried to explain it to my 5-year-old son. Our family story doesn’t seem too complicated: I’m Chinese-American and my husband is white, an American of English-Dutch-Irish descent; we have two children. My 5-year-old knows my parents…
‘Half Asian’? ‘Half White’? No — ‘Hapa’
Alex Laughlin, NPR Code Switch December 15, 2014 She was tall and freckled, with long, dark hair — and we stood out in the same way. As I leaned in to say hi, she yelled over the din, “You’re hapa, aren’t you?” It was the last word I expected to hear in D.C., but I welcomed…
Hapa-palooza 2014 Celebrates Three Giants of Mixed-Heritage
Jordan Yerman, Vancouver Observer September 28, 2014 “What am I? I’m what’s on your spoon when you pull it out of the melting pot!!” So writes a subject in California-based artist Kip Fulbeck’s photo series “part asian, 100% hapa” “The Hapa Project” just opened at the Nikkei National Museum, which also hosted Hapa-palooza’s inaugural Hip Hapa Hooray awards….
Skin As Canvas: Japanese American National Museum’s ‘Perseverance’ Exhibit
Val Zavala, KCET SoCal Connected – watch video May 28, 2014 Photographs of intricate full-body Japanese tattoo designs are now on display at the Japanese American National Museum’s new exhibit, “Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World” The exhibit is curated by Takahiro Kitamura and photographed and designed by Kip Fulbeck, who has been…
Tattoo Art Embodies Proud Japanese Tradition
Madison Wade, NBC Los Angeles – Watch Video May 17, 2014 The work done at Onizuka Tattoo is painstaking As one may expect from any form of tattoo procedure, the feeling is painful but the people who endure this say it is worth it for every colorful, square inch “Taka has a real gentle touch,”…
The Inked and Bleeding Heart of ‘Perseverance’
Evan Senn, KCET Artsbound May 6, 2014 In the world of outsider art, tattooing has the longest and largest history of any other. For centuries, people all over the world have been pricking their skin with pigments and inks for a multitude of culturally significant reasons. Some cultures originally used tattooing as a healing practice,…
Japanese tattoo art show explores the craft and its future
Michelle Mills, The Los Angeles Newspaper Group April 22, 2014 The Japanese as a culture has long been noted for its appreciation of beauty, but that does not necessarily extend to the art of tattoo. The show looks at Japanese tattooing and its ties to ukiuyo-e prints, as well as the practices and relationships of…
Photography exhibits at the Asia Society challenge self-perception and upset stereotypes
culturemap houston December 27, 2012 Tell us about yourself! That’s the invitation for those who make it into the current exhibition at the Asia Society Texas Center, and hundreds of visitors have taken the offer to heart. You can view their self-impressions along with their photos at the Grand Hall of the Texas Center’s new…
Up Close with Kip Fulbeck
UCSB Professor Brings Slam Poetry to the Classroom Kelsey Gripenstraw, The Independent August 30, 2012 Kip Fulbeck is one of those people whose simple presence leaves you noticeably affected. Add in a few colorful stories about his students, and you’ll walk away inspired Fulbeck’s name precedes him as one of the standout faces on UCSB’s…
Expanding Identity: Reflections on the 2012 Getty Intern Arts Summit
Ashley Blackley, blogs.getty.edu July 2, 2012 This summer, I am working at the Getty Foundation as part of the Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program. The program provides paid internships to diverse students at arts organizations all across L.A., including the Getty. The highlight of my first week was assisting with our Arts Summit, a full day…
Kip Fulbeck discusses race, identity
Chloe Stepney, Daily Trojan January 31, 2012 Identity is more than race, and race has no biological basis, said Kip Fulbeck, who spoke at The Arts of Resistance, an Uncommon Conversation at USC Dornsife event in Doheny Memorial Library on Tuesday. “I was born in a time when in some states, my parent’s marriage was…
Doubles, Triples and Halves – Kip Fulbeck’s Hapa Project
Ayelet Zohar, Trans Asia Photography Review (link) October, 2011 Kip Fulbeck’s Hapa Project was recently exhibited at the Race: Are We So Different? exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, Aug. 2011 The expanded context of the display considered the history and context of race issues in the USA, and the main objective…